Kerbside recycling and HWRCs

Orkney Islands Council wants to thank people who visited the Hatston and Garson Household Waste Recycling Centres this week for their consideration and co-operation.

Both sites reopened on Tuesday morning to give residents the opportunity to deposit garden waste – and will be only taking garden waste for an initial period.

Both received a steady and manageable flow of cars on day one, with no queues of any significance at either site. There were no trailers over 2.4 metres in length, helping to ensure that the maximum number of cars could be on site at any one time while maintaining physical distancing.

Both sites are open from Tuesday to Saturday each week. Hatston is open from 09:00 to 15:45 and Garson from 10:00 to 15:45.

The Council asked people to delay, if possible, their first visits to the sites this week, especially on Saturday – to help prevent queues from building up. Covid-19 restrictions and the need for social distancing mean that only five cars at a time are allowed on site at Hatston, and three at Garson.

The Council would like to remind users that the sites are closed between 12:00 and 13:00 to allow time for a staff welfare break.

Councillor Andrew Drever said: “We very much appreciate the public’s efforts in working with the Council’s guidance and ensuring that both kerbside and HWRC disposals work in a manageable way.  We will continue collections and disposals on a single waste stream basis for now but will introduce additional streams as soon as practicably possible.

60 tonnes of glass was collected in week one (2 months’ worth) and there has been a large amount (5 tonnes) of plastic bottles put out for collection with very little contamination.

Next week’s kerbside recycling collection will be tins and cans.

Councillor Drever continued: “Planning is ongoing in regard to our other HWRCs and Island collection points but at this time, I ask that the public bear with us and we’ll get there in due course and in the meantime please don’t use the isles recycling points.

“Our waste teams are doing a great job in managing collections and on-site disposals and I ask that they are supported in their role during this unusual time.”