Do not visit a household recycling centre (HRC, or “the tip”) right now unless your waste cannot be stored safely at home. This is the simple message that Dorset Council is using to help deal with rising visitor numbers.
Recent warm weather has resulted in HRCs becoming busy again as visitors drop off their items – primarily garden waste and wood – which is starting to cause long queues, creating access problems for residents, businesses and kerbside collection vehicles.
Last May, Dorset Council re-opened its HRCs with safety restrictions in place after they were closed in the early stages of the pandemic. Initially, extra people were brought in to manage queuing traffic, but this was scaled back as visitor numbers eased over the summer, with volunteers and employees deployed elsewhere.
This had continued to work well over the colder months when visitor numbers are traditionally lower, but lately the mild weather in Dorset has encouraged people to begin gardening again, or Spring cleaning. This produces more waste, which in turn causes visitor numbers to rise.
But safety restrictions remain in place, meaning that access to each HRC still hasn’t returned to pre-COVID levels. For example, parts of each site may have been sectioned off to help with social distancing, there can only be one person on the access steps at any given time and on-site staff are not permitted to physically help visitors unload and drop off their waste.
As a result, vehicle access and visitor time on site is slower than usual. Some people have been making multiple trips per day, while others have even complained about the delays in being able to access each site, while contributing to the traffic problems.
There is also the potential for disruption to kerbside services around Sherborne and Blandford, as queuing traffic causes problems for collection vehicles that need to access the sites to tip waste collected when emptying bins.
Dorset Council is once again kindly asking everyone if they really need to visit an HRC, or whether they can keep their waste at home safely until social distancing measures are relaxed. We also want to thank those who are postponing their visit for these reasons.
Cllr Jill Haynes, Dorset Council’s portfolio holder for Customer, Community and Regulatory Services, said:
“I completely understand that people want to get on with their usual activities and pastimes, including gardening or even having a clear-out. These can be a great way of being productive while everything remains closed. But these activities produce waste, and everyone needs to remember that the whole country is still very much in lockdown.
HRCs are open to deal with essential waste; they are not an invitation for people to make a “trip to the tip”, especially when public health guidance states we should all be avoiding unnecessary travel right now.
We don’t want to reintroduce costly traffic management measures, or start scrutinising the types of waste that are being dropped off, but we also cannot excuse the sheer number of visitors who are doing frivolous tip-runs at a time when everyone is being asked help contain the virus by staying at home whenever possible.
If you can keep hold of your waste safely at home, then please do so until restrictions have been lifted. If you are gardening, please consider home-composting or signing up for our garden waste service. Thank you for your patience and cooperation.”
Fundamentally, the size of the tips needs to increase to reduce the temptation to fly tip. Make it easy and don’t charge and people won’t fly tip. More tips and bigger sites please. Get real.
We’d politely disagree that the size of our HRCs has anything to do with fly-tipping. Dorset is well served by HRCs, with 10 across the county and secured access to a further 3, all free to visit. The current access issues mainly stem from safety measures in place slowing down how many people we can safely accommodate at any time. We should also point out that most fly-tips consist of waste that can be dropped off at an HRC free of charge. However, we cannot legally allow waste that has been produced via commercial means (including waste transport) to be dropped off – James
Mr Greenland is correct. the size of Dorchester tip in particular has not been increased or access improved since the development of Poundbury. It’s well past its use by date and its situation and size encourages fly tipping when the alternative is sitting in a queue when the gates are closed during opening time. I appreciate skips have to be emptied could they not be empty ready for use before open to the public each day. If they need emptying during the day then the tip is not large enough.
Greenland is spot on. And the council, again, don’t see what the real public see.
Small tips and this ridiculous booking system that’s still in place even after the so called “Freedom Day” are only having negative impacts on the environment.
People are fly tipping, burning household rubbish and garden waste, instead of “just popping down the tip” to dispose of correctly.
I wonder how many electrical products have been thrown in domestic bins because it’s too time consuming to head down to the tip to put the item in electrical waste?
We don’t operate a booking system Mark, and haven’t done throughout the pandemic. While we accept there are access issues at a couple of our HRCs (Dorchester and Wimborne), we believe that Dorset is well-served with the wider HRC network. We also operate Waste Electronic and Electrical Equipment (WEEE) recycling banks at multiple locations across the county – James
Facilitate bookings for specific times for individuals to visit recycling centres.
Lessens queues, frustrations and traffic build up etc.
When the days quota is full, thats it!
The process would be quicker and much safer.
While we agree a booking system would alleviate problems on site, it would dramatically affect the number of people who could access an HRC as booking slots fill quickly. If everyone uses their local HRC considerately, we shouldn’t need to introduce further restrictions – James
Seconded! Have read Dorset Concil’s reply, but don’t agree with it.
Like everywhere else, there are more people in Dorset than ever before, but the number of HRCs hasn’t gone up to reflect this. We urgently need more and larger HRCs.
We have thousands of new houses being built in and around the Wimborne area but the tip is too small and inefficient. It has to be completely shut just to swap a skip out. It needed to be upgraded a few years ago but it was somehow decided that it was fit for purpose in it’s current location.
OK point taken. I always try to visit the tip when it is quiet, don’t come very often, bring the same things together so I don’t spend ages walking around to different areas. Just stuffed the car with bags of garden stuff which isn’t compostable and certainly wouldn’t fit in a bin and can’t burn it due to proximity of roads and electricity. Won’t bring any more until lockdown over.
It’s that level of consideration that we love to see! It will prevent further restrictions being introduced and allow for everyone to be able to get to an HRC when they need to, so thank you so much – James
DC should be encouraging local residents to use recycling centres, not dissuading them since this will only increase the risk of fly-tipping. I visited Shaftesbury recycling centre on Sunday morning (28 Feb) and was very surprised when, having been open for just 90 minutes, the centre was closed for at least 15 minutes whilst the excavator did its usual tamping down routine. This struck me as being a site management issue since, with restricted access on site, the volume of material dumped since opening (at 10am) should not have warranted such action. It is high time that recycling capacity was increased in this part of north Dorset.
Peter – We’ll encourage people to use the recycling centres once again when we are out of lockdown. Until then, they should only be used for waste that cannot be stored safely at home.
You can disagree all you like. But it doesn’t take someone with a genius level of I.Q. To work out if you charge people to drop off certain waste then the temptation is for them to avoid the cost by fly tipping, and THAT costs the council even more.
Please read https://news.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/2018/05/16/charges-at-the-dump-cause-fly-tipping-time-to-think-again/ – James
So, the Council Tax is increased by the maximum amount legally allowed and the council are kindly asking people not to use the service they have paid for. How strange. Stop wasting money on old school buildings and resurfacing car parks that don’t need it and try resurfacing some of the excuses of roads in Swanage.
We are kindly asking people to delay their “trip to the tip” while we are in lockdown. Those facilities will still be there when we can safely accommodate more visitors – James
DC should be encouraging local residents to use recycling centres, not dissuading them since this will only increase the risk of fly-tipping. I visited Shaftesbury recycling centre on Sunday morning (28 Feb) and was very surprised when, having been open for just 90 minutes, the centre was closed for at least 15 minutes whilst the excavator did its usual tamping down routine. This struck me as being a site management issue since, with restricted access on site, the volume of material dumped since opening (at 10am) should not have warranted such action. It is high time that recycling capacity was increased in this part of north Dorset.
We do encourage people to use HRCs Peter, but no amount of people wishing to drop off waste they could keep at home temporarily changes the fact that we are still meant to be in lockdown. As for the temporary site closure, our contractors try to do this as little as possible but we do not have unlimited capacity at any of our sites so it will inevitably happen. Modern sites (such as Bridport) are able to remove containers while keeping the site open, but this is because the facility was purposely built to accommodate this activity – James
Have you not considered an appointment booking system?
There is one in place at Somerly , and I have used it a few times,
it works very well and there are no traffic queues.
We have considered it Ken, but while it may manage traffic levels on site, it heavily restricts the number of people who can access each site. Some may feel this is acceptable, but we fear it will simply shift people from being angry queuing in their car to being angry that they can’t book a slot as none are available – James