The day and time you get your waste refuse bins collected is set to change in the New Year.
Derry City Council’s Environmental Department has carried out a review of its refuse collection service and is to introduce major changes from the second week in January.
A report to be presented at Council’s Environmental Services Committee this Thursday, will tell members the review was considered necessary because of the many changes that have taken place within the city and environs over recent years.
The changes will also result in bin crews being “freed up” for the new food waste service being introduced.
At present, Council provide collection services to approximately 42,000 domestic and 500 commercial users.
The service has expanded considerably since the introduction of wheeled bins to the city in 1989 and more recently following the introduction of recycling collections and the switch to alternate weekly collections in 2004.
Issues impacting on the service include:
• distance from the Depot to the start of the round
• distance to tipping (transfer stations) points
• density of housing and length of round
• hours available to work
• number of bins per round
The present rounds have been in operation since approximately 1993 and were formulated on the parameters listed above as existed at that time.
This included, for example, vehicles been garaged at Pennyburn, tipping at either Culmore or Newbuildings landfill sites and a housing stock of approximately 32,000 properties.
Much has changed since then, including garaging operations switching from Pennyburn to Skeoge and tipping operations switching from Culmore and Newbuildings to Maydown and Campsie.
Councillors will be told the outcome of this is that runs have evolved and been added to in an ad-hoc manner resulting in in-balances between runs, inefficiencies in vehicle use in terms of mileage/fuel etc and some discontent between drivers as to the “share out” of work.
Presently, several vehicles collect waste from the same housing areas/estates criss-crossing each other on a sometimes daily basis.
In addition, other vehicles are operating at maximum capacity and cannot accommodate increases in housing numbers planned for their particular areas.
Also, some vehicles commence collections in the Maydown/Campsie areas terminating collections at locations near to Culmore or Newbuildings and then make the return trip to Maydown/Campsie.
The service currently operates with eight Residential Refuse Collection Vehicles (RCV’S), an RCV for commercial waste and a 15 tonne RCV that is used for hard to access areas.
In addition, Council is also committed to introducing a separate food waste collection service to all domestic properties.
The report says the review has identified a number of changes that if implemented will improve efficiencies within the service giving rise to cost savings.
These include the collection of commercial and domestic wastes by all vehicles thereby reducing the need for a separate vehicle to collect these wastes resulting in the “freeing up” of a crew for the food waste service.
Optimising the routes is predicted to save between 10-15% on fuel costs with a commensurate reduction in vehicle servicing costs and a reduction in CO2 emissions.
Implementation of the revised collection rounds and the food waste routes is scheduled to begin on the second week in January.
Council will be providing information to all householders in advance of these changes and in advance of the introduction of the new services along with issuing the food waste caddies to the relevant households.
Council officials have conceded there will be some residents that will be inconvenienced during the implementation and are to assist by providing an extra collection for those impacted most by the changes.
Councillors will also be told there will be extra staff and vehicles added to the service to ensure the transition is as smooth as it can be and with as little disruption as possible to ratepayers.
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