Bins recruitment crisis continues

Powys County Council has admitted that it is still struggling to hire people to collect our bins, as the national recruitment crisis continues to impact all sectors of its operations.

The regional authority said that while the bin collection impact is most noticeable, they just can’t find the staff to fill vacancies across all areas of council work to cover absences due to illness and continued cases of Covid-19.

Cllr Jackie Charlton, Cabinet Member for a Greener Powys, said: “We make every effort to get our workforce up to full capacity. However, the struggle to provide a normal waste and recycling collection service across the county will continue to be a challenge in the short term.

“Please continue to put your bins and boxes out for collection on the normal collection day. If a collection cannot be completed, we ask that black wheeled bins remain out (we will be back to empty ASAP), but recycling boxes are taken back in again for another week.

“If you have not received a collection by 5pm, please check online for details of when we will be returning to collect (https://en.powys.gov.uk/binday).

“All our staff continue to do their best to ensure that recycling boxes do not go longer than a fortnight without being emptied, and additional separated recycling left in bags alongside the boxes will be accepted.

“Please be assured that we are giving this our full attention and hope that things settle down and we can resume our normal service soon. We would like to thank the people of Powys for their patience during these challenging times.”

The depots have been working with the council’s recruitment team to have a rolling recruitment programme running for a number of months and have been advertising vacancies through MyWelshpool as well as their own social media.

Agency staff have been recruited and highways crews have been utilised, with current staff also given the opportunity to upskill and train as HGV drivers, but all this takes time.

Current crews have been working extended hours to make up for missed collections, and during the heatwave they started their shifts earlier.

If you are interested in working with the council, visit https://en.powys.gov.uk/jobs