Festive bin collection dates announced in Walsall
Walsall’s bins boss has hailed dedicated refuse collectors who are gearing up for the festive season after working through the pandemic.
The festive bin collection dates have been announced by the authority and Councillor Oliver Butler, portfolio holder for clean and green, said the schedule had been planned to cause minimum disruption.
He also heaped praise on the team who collectively covered hundreds of miles, emptying thousands of bins as coronavirus took hold.
During Christmas and New Year, residents are being urged to utilise the council’s bulky waste and recycling centres and avoid huge fines for fly-tipping.
Councillor Butler said: “Our waste and recycling operatives have been hard at work all the way through the Covid-19 pandemic, providing an essential and much valued service day in and day out to our residents.
“I would like to place on record my sincere thanks to them for their dedication and hard work in all weathers, which ensured we were able to empty all our residents’ grey and green bins during the first Spring lockdown.
“I very much consider my operatives to be key workers and, having been out on the rounds with them myself several times, I know from experience that their job is physically demanding and sees the crews covering 12 to 14 miles per day on foot, whilst loading circa 800 bins each.
“In planning collections at this time of year, we try hard to minimise service disruption.
Collection service
“Our crews work as normal on all of the other Bank Holidays throughout the year, so it’s only right that they should be able to have a few days off over the Christmas period with their families.
“Once Christmas is over, many of us will be having a bit of a clear out and so I would like to remind residents that our bulky collection service remains available for domestic properties and collections can be booked on our website.
“We are continuing to offer a collection of three items for £10 which has proved popular with residents.
“In addition both of our Household Waste Recycling Centres at Fryers Road, Bloxwich and Merchants Way, Aldridge, which are free to use for all Walsall residents continue to operate and will be open over the Christmas period, allowing for Bank Holidays, to help all our residents recycle and dispose of their household waste correctly.
“Why risk a £400 fine for fly tipping when you can go to the tip for free?”
From Monday, December 21 collection dates for grey rubbish and green recycling bins will be amended for Christmas holidays.
If collection days are usually on Monday, they will be emptied on December 21 and January 4 but there will be no collection on Monday, December 28. Collections return to normal on January 11.
For Tuesday, there will be collections on December 22 and January 5 but none on December 29. Normal service resumes on January 12.
Wednesday collections will take place on December 23 and January 6 but not on December 30. Usual schedule returns on January 13.
For Thursdays, there will be a collection on Christmas Eve and January 7 but not on New Year’s Eve. Normal service returns on January 14.
With both Christmas Day and New Year’s Day falling on a Friday this year, there will be no collections on that day.
Collections will be carried out on Wednesday, December 30 and January 8.
If a resident’s regular collection would have fallen on Christmas Day, a maximum of 3 additional bags of waste will be collected during the collection on Wednesday, December 30.
The additional waste will be collected for these customers on this day only.
Collections will return to normal schedule from January 15.
Both recycling centres will be open apart from on Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.
