Some temporary changes to the recycling collections are being brought in as the coronavirus crisis continues.
City of York Council is making the changes to protect its frontline staff and allow for additional social distancing measures.
Residents are still required to leave recycling boxes at the kerbside and continue to separate materials in their boxes as normal. Collection days will also remain unchanged.
Waste crews will now be working in smaller teams to ensure that they can maintain a safe distance during working hours to protect themselves from infection.
Residents should be aware of the following changes to recycling collections, which include:
- recycling will be split into two vehicles
- a vehicle will collect plastic, tins and glass. Some mixing on the vehicle may take place
- another vehicle will collect paper and cardboard
- residents may experience two separate collections of recycling on the same day as the two vehicles may not arrive at the same time
- in some instances, this may take a number of hours
- as some mixing on the plastic, tins and glass vehicle will take place, the council will accept mixed plastic, tins and glass, but cardboard and paper must be separated
- the council encourages residents to put out their recycling as normal, for 7am.
Separated after collection
Executive member for environment and climate change Cllr Paula Widdowson said: ““Our waste crews are providing a vital service during the Coronavirus pandemic to every household in York.
“We have to take these additional measures to protect them as much as we can.
“Where mixing of glass, plastic and tin happens, we can assure residents that this will be separated after collection and recycled. We will seek to recover any additional costs of doing this from the government.”
The council said the situation with garden waste collections will be kept under constant review, with an intention to resume garden waste collections as soon as practically possible.