Councillors and officers at Dorset Council are celebrating after they recently completed the successful change of bin collection rounds in North Dorset.
Around 34,000 households in and around the north of the county had their bin collections changed earlier this month, leading to cost savings on vehicle use, increased reliability, and more efficient round configurations.
The entire project is the culmination of months of hard work by frontline and back-office employees. Starting in late 2020, drawing upon live data from our state-of-the-art vehicle tracking system, an administrative team began crunching the numbers and looking at ways that historic bin collection rounds could potentially be changed and improved.
Once the data had been analysed by back-office employees, supervisors and the area manager, the team took their findings to front line staff. Drawing upon invaluable local knowledge from waste collection crews and drivers, the rounds were finalised and affected households were identified.
To ensure residents had clear information on what was happening, around 34,000 households were written to directly and provided with instructions on what they needed to do. For most, it simply meant putting their bins out on a different day, but some had additional collections scheduled to cover any extended gaps in service.
People were also informed that food waste would now be collected by a separate crew, rather than picked up at the same time as their rubbish or recycling. Making this clear helped prevent instances of mistaken missed bin reports, saving valuable time and resources for administrative employees.
Various electronic communications were also issued to remind North Dorset residents to look out for their letter, although Dorset Council’s Customer Services team still received and dealt with around 50-70 additional contacts each day from residents with enquiries about the new collection rounds.
From Monday 7 June, using new 7.5 tonne food waste collection vehicles and 26 tonne refuse freighters, crews based at the Shaftesbury and Blandford depots began the new rounds. With a few minor teething problems – to be expected when making changes of this size – collections went smoothly, with any issues being fully investigated and resolved swiftly by the depot team.
Cllr Jill Haynes, Dorset Council’s Portfolio Holder for Customer and Community Services, said:
“The huge amount of work required to pull off such an impressive feat cannot be understated. From the analysis of all the available data and local knowledge by our back-office team, through to the purchasing of new vehicles, and the support and sheer hard graft of our collection crews, this is a fantastic achievement for everyone involved.
I’m very proud of everyone in our Waste Services team and I want to thank everyone for their efforts in making these round changes such a success. By continually reviewing and optimising our bin collections, we can deliver a more efficient service for our residents and save money while ensuring we continue to provide one of the best recycling schemes in the country.
I’d also like to thank all the residents in and around North Dorset for their cooperation while we made these changes. We have been able to introduce these new rounds with a minimal amount of disruption to their service and I know I speak for everyone in the team when I say I’m extremely grateful for their support.”
Please could you advise me of the updated day and times my various bins will be collected.
I am an assisted customer
Many thanks Della Jones
Hello Della – You can look up your collections days at https://mapping.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/mylocal/ – thank you. James.
For the second time the BLUE bins for SP8 4NB (commonmead ave) have not
the been collected on the Wednesday as stated. (The first was collected on the Saturday and the second is still waiting out on the pavement)
Sorry to hear that Andrew – we’re resolved any issues quickly, so please report any missed collections via https://www.dorsetcouncil.gov.uk/bins-recycling-and-litter/report-a-bin-problem/missed-bin-collection.aspx thank you – James
Not that efficient.my food bin has not been collected for three weeks. I’m afraid the new system might have saved money but it is NOT an improvement.
Sorry to hear about that – do you have a reference number from when you reported it?
Mc345155952. We are a hamlet of 4 houses in woodcuts at the end of the collection run as we are on the Dorset/Wiltshire border. We have only had one food waste collection since the change and I have now reported it twice.
Thank you Allan – I have passed that on to the depot. It’s worth noting that the recent programme of works is the biggest shake-up in how we deliver collections in North Dorset in decades, so we’re still bedding the new rounds in as drivers get used to the new arrangements. Please accept our apologies for any missed collections – hopefully they’ll be sorted soon, but don’t hesitate to drop us a line if problems persist. Thanks again, James.
I don’t very often have any food waste to leave out so I was shocked to find out that a different crew came to pick up any food waste left out. To me this is wasting our tax money on fuel, people and time. This should continue to be collected at the same time as the other waste.
Caroline – We ran extensive calculations before implementing the new rounds, and it’s clear that the new set up is saving tax money, fuel and resources. The food waste vehicles are smaller and more efficient. Also, perhaps most importantly, food waste can now be taken directly to the recycling facility at Piddlehinton rather than being dropped off at our waste transfer depot and then picked up by another vehicle, reducing vehicle emissions. Also, crews are now split across the vehicles – we didn’t need to bring in any extra people to deliver the new service – James