COLCHESTER Council has announced plans to get recycling collections back to normal... but there will still be some disruption for now.

Due to staff shortages and social distancing guidelines the authority was forced to stop some collections and make others four-weekly.

However things have changed and the authority has been working on a plan to get back to normal service.

Here are the changes you need to know:

  • From tomorrow, May 25, garden waste collections will restart. The normal limits on the amount of waste to be collected remain in place.
  • Special collections for bulky items will resume on June 1.
  • The temporary four week collections of paper, card, cans, glass and plastics will remain in place until June 19. So residents can still put out four black bin bags and six recycling sacks until this date.
  • After June 19, normal fortnightly collections of recyclables will resume, as will normal limits.
  • Temporary drop off locations for garden waste will be set up at locations across the borough to help meet demand.
  • Temporary recycling calendars have been created for residents and are available at colchester.gov.uk/your-recycling-calendar.

Martin Goss, councillor responsible for waste, environment and transportation, said: “Thank you to everyone for their support with the temporary changes to our recycling and rubbish collections. A phenomenal amount of work has gone on behind the scenes to get our recycling collections back up and running and we’re now confident we have adequate measures in place to allow us to safely restart your full garden waste collection service.

“These unprecedented times have been incredibly challenging for critical services such as the recycling and rubbish collections.

"Going forward we will be taking the lessons learnt from this situation and reviewing our service to ensure that we can deliver an even better service in the borough.”

Visit colchester.gov.uk/gardendropoff to find out more.