Below is the latest briefing on the recovery from the waste strike – many thanks to everyone who provided feedback on this issue!

Members’ briefing 692: Strike action – updated advice for residents (31 August)

Bin collections and street cleansing services restarted yesterday following strike action. Our crews are working hard to clear as much waste and litter as they can across the city. However, it’s looking increasingly likely that strike action will commence again from Tuesday 6 September. Unfortunately, this means we’ve had to update our operational plans. To allow our crews to focus on grey and green wheelie bin collections we will be suspending garden waste collections this Thursday and Friday (1 and 2 September) and changing our advice for residents.

As such, and in line with the contingency plan for two strike periods, we are putting the following advice in place:

1. Residents who are due any bin collections today, Wednesday 30 August, will still have these collected as normal.
2. Anyone due a bin collection on Thursday or Friday should:
   • Put both their green AND grey wheelie bins, and bagged extra waste, out by 6am on their normal collection day and we will aim to empty them BOTH. There may be some delays and they may not be collected on the same day as each other, so they should leave them out until the end of the day on Monday 5 September.
   • If they’re due a food waste collection, they should put this out as usual, by 6am.
   • Garden waste collections will be suspended on these days. Brown bins should not be put out for collection on Thursday or Friday – they will not be collected. We’re very sorry for this and will be in touch with garden waste customers with details of how we’ll compensate them for any collections missed because of strike action.
   • The glass collection service remains suspended. We’ll provide an update when this is due to restart.

This approach will mean that there are no kerbside properties that have been more adversely impacted by the two strike actions than any other. It avoids some of the criticism that other councils are facing for not helping out residents that have accumulated waste over a longer period of time than other households.

You can find full details of bin collection days, the recovery plan and advice on dealing with waste on the Council website: www.edinburgh.gov.uk/binstrike.

This information will be shared with media, on social media and with our partners. I would appreciate it if you’re able to share the guidance with your residents and networks.