Published Tuesday 21 April 2020 at 10:55
Blackburn with Darwen Council has re-started its Bulky Waste Collection Service.
The service offers residents the chance to dispose of unwanted household items and garden waste from as little as just £7.50.
The collections were temporarily suspended when the coronavirus lockdown was initially announced by Government, but new safety measures have now been put in place to allow it to now re-start.
Councillor Jim Smith, the council’s Executive Member for the Environment said:
It’s great news that we’ve been able to reintroduce this service so quickly.
The safety of our residents and staff has always been our priority and we had to take the difficult decision to suspend services like these until we could introduce new safety measures.
We also needed to redeploy our teams to help support critical services, including bin collections, and thanks to the fantastic efforts of our teams they’ve continued to run as normal.
Under the new safety measures, in a bid to protect residents and staff, bulky waste must be left untouched at a collection point for 72 hours before it can be collected.
The council is also asking that there’s adequate room for crews to be able to adhere to the social distancing guidelines.
Councillor Smith added:
We know that many residents will have been wanting to do clear outs while at home and this is an affordable way to dispose of everything from settees to fridges and old wardrobes.
Where residents are struggling with excess waste, perhaps if they’ve been having a spring clean or tidying up their gardens, we can take that too.
The service works on a unit system and you can find a really handy guide on the council’s website.
The Environment Service is also trialling new technology for waste collections which will also benefit the Garden Waste Collection Scheme.
Currently when residents sign up to the service, they must wait for their sticker permit to arrive which can take more than a month under the current circumstances.
If successful, the new technology will allow collections to start as early as the following week.
Councillor Smith said:
These are unprecedented times and so we are trying our best to look at new ways of working to try and best help support our services for residents.
As always, our staff in the Environment Team are pulling out all of the stops and I’m really grateful for all their hard work and efforts.
Due to the number of people currently at home, where possible, the council is asking people to place the items at the front of the household; driveway or garden if possible to make it easier for the crews to access.
Due to the covid-19 restrictions, staff will not be able to go inside people’s houses.
The household waste recycling centres remain closed nationally – a decision which is being reviewed daily.
To find out more about the Bulky Waste Collection Service, visit www.blackburn.gov.uk
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