Coronavirus: How you can help our bin crews

We want to make sure your bin collections can run as normal during the Coronavirus crisis while also keeping you and our crews safe.

Please take just 5 minutes to read these top tips on how you can help:

Self-isolating

If you and your family are self-isolating as you have symptoms of Coronavirus, please take these simple steps:

• Double bag all the rubbish in your burgundy bin (especially things like tissues and disposable cleaning cloths)
• The bags should be tied securely
• Please keep them away from where you are self-isolating
• Don’t put them in the burgundy bin for at least 72 hours

Remember, you can find a full list of symptoms on the NHS website.

Keeping your bin clean

While we’re all taking extra steps to keep our homes and workplaces clean, please don’t forget your wheelie bin!

Your crews can touch up to 2,000 bins each a day!

They’ll be wearing gloves, but please disinfect the bin handles when you take the bin out for collection and when you bring it back in.

Extra waste

We know it’ll be tempting to have a good spring clean while spending more time at home.

However, please think about how you’ll store the extra waste that this will create given that the Household Waste Recycling Centres are temporarily closed and our bulky waste collections have been stopped for the time being.

Our crews are working flat out and will not be able to collect extra bags and boxes – which would also add extra risk to their rounds.

There’ll also not be enough room in our refuse vehicles and this means other residents may have to miss having their bins emptied.

If you do want to have a good tidy up, think about how you can store the rubbish and split it over your next few collections to make sure it fits in your bins but doesn’t make them too heavy.

Also, think about what you can keep to one side to donate to charity or pass on to friends and family when the current situation is over.

Parking

With residents doing a fantastic job of following the guidelines to stay home, it means our streets are much busier than usual with parked cars.

Please be mindful that our trucks do need to still be able to get through to be able to collect your bins.

We’d be really grateful if you could make sure areas on and opposite junctions are kept clear to allow enough space for them to be able to turn in the road.

Back streets also need to be empty – this includes cars and also things like skips too.

While this is important for us on bin collection days, please also think of emergency vehicles including ambulances and fire engines that may also need to get through.

Food

There’s been lots in the news about panic buying which means we’re expecting a big increase in the amount of food residents are throwing away.

The Love Food Hate Waste website has lots of helpful tips to help you keep food fresh for as long as possible.

They also have recipes for individual ingredients to help cut down on the amount you need to throw away and the amount of shopping trips you need to be making – which is more important than ever. And, it’ll also help you save money!

Here’s a quick guide from the website:

• Use up all leftovers or freeze them and use them another day
• Don’t bin something if it has gone past its best before date, it is still good and safe to  eat
• Look at the use by dates and eat up those closest to the use by dates first
• Buy only what you need

The website is also a great site for children too to learn about food waste and the impact on the environment.

Recycling

You may have family or friends stopping with you. Please make sure they’re familiar with what can be recycled in your grey bin.

This will reduce what we have to send to landfill – doing your bit to help save the planet – and it’ll also free up more space in your burgundy bin.

If you’ve got a bit of time, it might also be worth having a quick read yourself as a refresher.

Updates

There may come a time when we have to make changes to your bin collections.

Please follow our Blackburn with Darwen Council Facebook page for all the latest updates or check the Council website.

In the meantime, please have your bins out on the normal collection days by 7am.

Remember, you can find all of our latest updates and guidance on our dedicated Coronavirus webpage.