Covid: Cardiff council halts green waste collections for winter

Residents will have to take garden waste to recycling centres

Green waste collections have been suspended in Cardiff for the next four months due to the coronavirus pandemic.

They would usually take place monthly, but have been halted for the winter and will not resume until March.

Council officials said, as Covid-19 cases rise, the change was aimed at ensuring general rubbish is collected and not left on streets.

The move caused anger among residents, with more than 900 people signing a petition calling for a rethink.

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The once-a-month service will not take place in November, December, January or February.

With the local authority bracing itself for issues such as sickness and self-isolating due to coronavirus, it wants to ensure it can cover aother waste collections.

"I understand things may slip, but not to have a single green waste collection seems odd," said Conservative councillor for Rhiwbina Adrian Robson, who started the petition.

"They could surely rearrange? Residents would be more than understanding if days changed."

Mr Robson is concerned an increase in locked down people gardening will not be matched by waste collections

While there is usually less green waste in winter, Mr Robson said there was more created this spring as people spent longer in their garden because of lockdown.

He is anticipating the same again this winter as the public face up to continued travel restrictions.

October's fortnightly collection will give residents a last chance to remove autumn leaves and clear garden waste before winter but after that, they will need to take it to a recycling centre themselves.

However, there will be a service to collect Christmas trees in January before fortnightly collections resume in March.

Mr Robson and other residents are concerned issues could include autumn leaves blocking drains

"We're forced to stay home and I want to do gardening. Therefore I need garden collections through the winter," said one anonymous poster on the petition.

David Suthers said he was concerned it would lead to fly-tipping and Becky Davies-Cox said keeping green spaces tidy in winter was already difficult enough with fortnightly collections moving to monthly ones in the winter.

"We need to be confident we can continue to remove general waste, recycling and food waste from our streets and the recent rise in infection rates across the city is concerning. It's already beginning to impact our workforce" said cabinet member for recycling Michael Michael.

"Right now we need our resources targeted at waste streams nobody wants to see on the streets.

"Halting garden waste collections at a time of year when garden waste is, naturally, considerably lower, is our best chance of making sure we can keep our streets clean while we battle the pandemic."

He said the move would give frontline staff "some resilience", adding: "I realise this may be challenging for some residents, but I hope they understand the reasons why we have to do this now."