The reason why bin collections have reduced in Torbay
86,000 bin collections have been missed over the past few weeks after crews try to catch up after Covid infections.
After a recent positive COVID case amongst SWISCo staff, two thirds of the waste and recycling workforce had to self isolate.
A major catchup programme has been in force and the operator hopes to have all rounds back to normal by Monday 23 November.
People living in the Torbay council area are being reminded to leave their recycling outside the front of their house as the service catches up on the collections they have been unable to complete.
Additional teams have been brought on to help with the backlog with more than 74,000 of the delayed collections now picked up by the waste team.
Councillor Mike Morey, the cabinet member responsible for Infrastructure and Environment, said:
"The welfare of our staff is paramount to us and following the extremely hard work put in by our crews including additional hours, they have reduced this down to 10,000 outstanding collections still to be completed. We have deployed extra crews on board and in a minority of instances we have had to use different vehicles for the collections in order to speed up and ensure that the catch up process doesn't carry on for several more weeks. If it is necessary, to achieve our target, we will undertake weekend working.
"So please bear with us - we are very nearly there. This has been an extraordinary situation and a major service disruption in what continues to be a very challenging year. We have had to work in different ways, but we are confident that the remaining missed collections will be caught up and will be completed over the next few days."
The service has apologised for any inconvenience caused.
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