Drivers ‘excluded’ from recycling routes review

By Elgan Hearn, Local Democracy Reporter

Waste and recycling lorry drivers were given no say in changes to collection routes which were implemented earlier this year.

An independent review also confirms that the route optimisation was to cut council costs, by using less vehicles and staff on the rounds.

At a joint meeting of Powys County Council’s (PCC) Governance and Audit Committee and Economy Residents and Communities (ERC) Scrutiny Committee next Wednesday, councillors and independent lay members will receive a report based on an independent review of the new collection routes, by WRAP Cymru.

WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme) Cymru is an organisation that helps deliver the Welsh Government’s environmental aims and objectives.

The review follows the shambolic roll out of new collection routes from March which has seen rubbish and recycling left uncollected for days on end, causing anger amongst residents.

The Liberal Democrat/Labour administration have kept the review secret until now.

This has outflanked opposition councillors who are set to put forward a motion for debate at tomorrow’s council meeting calling for the recycling and waste service to be reviewed.

WRAP said: “According to PCC, they undertook this routing exercise to account for new housing developments being built, the migration of the Welshpool and Newtown depots to Abermule and the fact that they noticed that the collection crews were finishing early.

“Once they had analysed the tipping time data, they believed they could make reductions in the number of resources vehicles and staff.”

WRAP continued: “The drivers at all three (Abermule, Brecon and Rhayader) depots, said they had not taken an active part in the round change planning which had left some resentment towards management as it seemed that supervisors and foremen had made most of the changes without any discussions about collections areas and issues.

“They stated that when they were given their routes they all seemed to be uniform in property numbers which didn’t take into consideration households regularly presenting double sets of recycling, namely plastic and cans boxes.”

WRAP said that the removal of cardboard recycling sites across the county had seen a “large increase” of cardboard being put out on the kerbside.

They also noted that staff working hours, which are from 7:30 am to 3:30pm and to 3pm on a Friday, are amongst the “latest in Wales”.

WRAP said: “Some local authorities start operations up to two hours earlier than PCC. The issue with PCC’s operational hours are that by the time they leave the depot, they will already be impacted by rush hour traffic and will also be affected by the school traffic at the end of the shift.”

WRAP have come up with two sets of recommendations, one for the routes and a second for staff.

In a statement ahead of the joint meeting the council say that things are getting better and a “recovery plan” which includes extra vehicles, strengthened management support and improved communications has helped bring the service back on track.

Cabinet member for waste and recycling, Cllr Richard Church (Liberal Democrat – Welshpool Castle) said: “Our crews, supervisors and support teams have worked incredibly hard to improve performance and we are now seeing those efforts making a real difference.

“Missed collections are reducing, recovery times are improving and the service is becoming more reliable.

“I look forward to the committee’s consideration of the report and their comments to further strengthen the service going forward.”

The recommendations include:

• Check the time recycling and waste collection rounds take
• Review the amount of cardboard in the recycling loads
• Review the maximum number of properties that can be collected from before tipping is needed
• Review the length of the routes
• Crews to have mobile phones for better communication with the office
• Refresher training for all staff
• Look at operational times
• Management of the Abermule depot needs “urgent additional resource”