HOUSEHOLDS in Redland, Westbury on Trym & Henleaze are continuing to suffer missed bin collections in spite of three attempts to resolve the problems.
A report to councillors showed how Bristol Waste repeatedly failed to collect rubbish and recycling after route changes.
Since late May, more than 200 missed collections have been reported in each of the wards, as well as in Avonmouth & Lawrence Weston.
The problems began last summer when Bristol City Council told its waste company to cut costs, leading in November to the first major changes to collection routes for more than a decade. This led to crews consistently dropping certain roads and missing more collections.
Further changes to routes were implemented in May and then July this year and Bristol Waste rolled out an extra four recycling rounds across the city to cover the dropped roads. The report to the council’s environment committee said further improvements to collection rates were expected from September but it warned that the cost of the extra rounds would affect whether Bristol Waste could be able to cut costs as instructed.
Another issue is the difficulty many face when reporting that their bins haven’t been collected. Conservative Cllr Henry Michallat (Stoke Bishop) said: “They call Bristol Waste and try to get in touch with somebody, and they don’t get an answer. They get angry, upset and annoyed about it.”
One problem facing the company, especially since the pandemic, is the growing amount of cardboard people throw away, given the rise in online shopping. This means crews have to offload lorries more often.
Another issue is converted housing, which has led to more cars on the roads, with some parked cars obstructing access. A rising number of battery fires is also an ongoing challenge.
Bristol Waste and the council are now exploring ways to increase processing capacity at recycling depots. Online reporting could be made easier for missed collections, and additional vehicles might be hired from neighbouring councils.
Green Cllr Martin Fodor (Redland), chair of the environment policy committee, said: “I asked for this report because we hadn’t had anything in public from the council about the way the services had been disrupted. The point of the report is not to point blame, it’s to look at what’s being done to address it, to learn lessons, and to make sure actions are being taken.
“We know there’s been a lot of effort to try and improve the reliability of the service, understand what went wrong and what we can learn from that.”
Liberal Democrat Cllr Tim Kent (Hengrove & Whitchurch Park) added: “People can see that we’re reflecting that yes, something has gone wrong. I’m hoping that over the next few months many of our residents will see the continued improvement that the report shows is the direction we’re going in.”
By Alex Seabrook, Local Democracy Reporting Service