Important changes to refuse and recycling collections will take place between Christmas and New Year affecting half of all households in Swindon.
Collections due to take during the week commencing Monday, 26 December will be one day later than usual with crews working on Saturday, 31 December to catch up.
This is to enable the crews to have Boxing Day off (26 December) as normal, although they will still work the following bank holiday of Tuesday, 27 December.
Red tags are being put on all the affected bins to notify residents of the changes and the amended days were also included in waste calendars sent to all residents in late October.
Refuse and recycling collections will be unaffected the following week as crews will work on the additional public holiday of Monday, 2 January. Garden waste collections will be suspended from Monday, 26 December until Friday, 6 January.
Real (not artificial) Christmas trees will be collected if residents leave them out on their first normal waste collection day after the festivities are over. All decorations and tinsel should be removed as trees with decorations left on will not be taken away.
Extra council staff and vehicles will be working for longer than normal on each day to keep up with the higher demand over the holiday period, with the aim of collecting all waste for residents on scheduled days.
These extended collection hours mean waste could be collected from homes from 6.30am in the morning until 5.30pm in the evening.
Cllr Keith Williams, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for StreetSmart, said: “Christmas is an extremely busy time of year and our crews will be working flat out to keep delays to collections to a minimum. They will be working on bank holidays and on Saturday to catch up so please bear with us, especially if there are unexpectedly high volumes of waste or we experience bad weather.
“We will be collecting real Christmas trees again this year and we would ask households to separate the waste in their recycling boxes as it will make it much easier for the crews. Please also break down large cardboard boxes into smaller pieces.”
Updates on collections will be available on the council website at: www.swindon.gov.uk/christmaswaste
