Brown bin collections temporarily suspended from 2 August 2021 for SOT residents

Stoke-on-Trent City Council’s garden waste collection service will be temporarily suspended with effect from Monday, 2 August 2021. This is due to a number of staff self-isolating in line with public heath guidance, and staffing shortages have caused some delays to our waste and recycling services.

It is anticipated that the temporary suspension will be for one week and will impact residents due a kerbside garden waste collection between Monday 2 August 2021 and Friday 6 August 2021.

Residents affected during this period are requested to present their garden waste bins for collection on the next scheduled collection day during the week commencing Monday, 16 August 2021.

Councillor Abi Brown, leader of Stoke-on-Trent City Council said: “Our waste and recycling team have been incredibly adaptive despite the challenges they’ve faced throughout the whole of COVID-19 pandemic. They deserve huge credit for their dedication and hard-work, as do our staff who have been redeployed to unfamiliar services areas. Although we are a huge organisation with a number of service areas, we are one huge team and we are always working together to continue to provide services for our residents.

“Unfortunately, staffing shortages have recently caused some delays to our waste and recycling services. In order to minimise any further disruption, we have made the difficult decision to suspend the garden waste kerbside collection service and redirect available resources into the statutory household refuse and recycling collections.

“This decision has not been taken lightly, and we know that many residents are using their gardens at the moment and generating garden waste, but the shortage of drivers and refuse loaders means we, like many other local authorities, are simply unable to provide this service as normal. We are doing everything we can to minimise the impact on residents and all available staff are also being redeployed to the waste and recycling service to ensure we can continue to prioritise statutory collections – we will continue to provide both residual (grey bin) and recycling (blue bin) collections. These should be presented as usual.

“We’d like to thank residents for their patience and to our staff for their continued hard work during this challenging time.”

Residents can use their grey bins for overflow garden waste if required for the following acceptable brown bin items: Grass cuttings, weeds, garden plant waste (remove excess soil), small branches, hedge trimmings, food waste, bones, tea bags, and coffee grounds.

The following brown bin items are not accepted in grey bins: Soil, compost and rubble.

The latest impacted waste collections will be posted on the city council’s website via  https://www.stoke.gov.uk/info/20002/rubbish_and_recycling and on its social media accounts.

The city council’s Household Waste Recycling Centres remain open and will accept garden waste.