Lessons learned from perfect storm that hit West Lothian bin uplifts

Head of Operational Services Jim Jack took the unusual step of addressing the Linlithgow Local Area Committee after a service breakdown during the Christmas holidays left 15,000 bins, mainly in the ward area, not collected for two weeks.

And he promised new action plans were being drawn up to ensure there would be no problems in the upcoming bank holidays at Easter and the King’s coronation in May.

In a report to the committee Mr Jack, the officer in charge of waste management, said that customers had been advised ahead of the Christmas holidays that there would be no brown bin uplifts between December 25 and January 4. Brown bins are for garden and food waste.

Collections of grey bins for non recyclable and blue and green for recyclables were scheduled for uplift on the Wednesday.

Mr Jack added: “The council was unable to provide full service collection between December 28 and 30 due to a number of issues. The disruption occurred over two days affecting eight routes each day, with 15,700 bins (16%) of the 100,000 bins scheduled for collection not collected.”

Five major issues were identified behind the failings – staff sickness, vehicles, increased tonnage of waste, problems with waste transfer and poor communications.

Mr Jack added: “I’d like to assure the committee and customers that the matter has been taken very seriously and that lessons will be learned.”