Back on track after breakdown

: Thursday, 11 October 2012 14:21

An issue arose on Thursday morning (11 October) as the District Council and contractor Serco Ltd pushed on towards our goal of delivering new recycling containers to all 33,000 homes in the Derbyshire Dales by the end of this week.

One of our new collection trucks Our collection trucks have split compartments side by side that could give the impression that household waste and food recycling are being thrown into the same area. This is not the case.

However, early on Thursday following a break-down to one of the new collection trucks - on a round where where food recycling was being collected from new food caddies alongside household waste - Serco had to bring in a hire vehicle that doesn't have split compartments.

Because collections are time-sensitive - especially this week - crews temporarily had to use the same space for recycling and waste. At 9.30am, separate containers for the hire truck arrived from the depot and all waste & recycling from that time was properly separated.

Teething problems on a service change of this kind are inevitable, but we do of course apologise to any Thursday households who had recycled food waste only for it to be picked up by one truck that could not recycle before 9.30 am. Please keep up the good work – you are making a real difference – and thanks for bearing with us as the new recycling service beds in.