SBC food waste collection suspension following staff accident

Collection of household food waste will be suspended this week and possibly beyond, Scottish Borders Council has confirmed.

SBC continue to experience service-wide disruption across all of its waste and recycling collections, following a health and safety incident involving a member of staff last week.

The lifting mechanisms on all waste collection vehicles continue to be operated in manual mode as opposed to the automatic feature, for the safety of staff.

This is slowing down the speed at which all types of domestic waste can be collected, causing disruption to operations and resulting in missed collections.

Now all domestic household food waste collections have been suspended between Monday, June 9 and Friday, June 13.

An SBC spokesperson said: “This is due to the knock-on effects of the service-wide disruption and the prioritisation of general waste and recycling collections.

“As we are not sure how long this disruption will continue, if you do not have enough space in your food waste bin, we ask that you place any food waste into your general waste bin until further notice.

“We are very sorry for this inconvenience. If your general waste or recycling bin is not collected as scheduled, please leave it presented as we will make every effort to return for it.

“If we have not returned by the Sunday, please take your bin back in and present it again on your next scheduled collection day.

“We would also like to remind householders to please remove bungee cords, ropes, chains or any other type of restraint from their wheeled bin on collection days for the safety of SBC staff.

“Remaining restraints will be removed by our staff if possible, but if they cannot be removed we will not be able to collect the bin. Please note that we may not be able to guarantee the return of any restraints removed by our staff.

“We will do our best to pick up any bulky uplifts that have been scheduled for the next weeks as planned; however no new bookings will be taken before July.

“We ask for your continued patience and cooperation while we work hard to resolve this matter. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience these disruptions may cause. Thank you for your understanding.”