New winter weather plans implemented by St Albans City and District Council have led to an improvement to its refuse collection service and path clearance following heavy snowfalls.

A year ago the Council was forced to suspend its refuse collection and recycling service due to severe winter weather. However, following snow in December 2010, the Council this winter maintained refuse collection schedules for green and black wheelie bins throughout the disruptions and by Christmas Eve only a few rural roads were left outstanding.

Although the period of severe weather experienced this winter was shorter than last year, schedules for collection of waste from black and green wheelie bins were maintained in part due to the implementation of new measures which enabled collection crews to clear any back log quickly. These included:

– Refuse collection crews re-visiting roads that had not been accessible on the scheduled collection day on the following day, after salt and grit had been laid down to allow access of heavy waste collection vehicles.

– The use of studded snowshoes by collection crews.

– The deployment of additional waste collection resources from 21st December onwards. The collection of recycling boxes was suspended from 20th December because of concerns about the safety of waste collection crews carrying heavy boxes across the snow and ice and these crews were redeployed to help with the collection of green and black wheelie bins. The collection of recycling boxes resumed on 29th December.

– A collect-all policy, where the contents of both green and black wheelie bins were collected together between 24 December and 5th January and sent to landfill.

New measures were also put in place to clear snow-laden and icy footpaths. These included:

– The gritting of footpaths according to a pre-agreed schedule with Hertfordshire Highways which prioritised key pathways. The gritting was carried out by street cleansing and re-deployed recycling collection crews.

– The use of hand operated grit spreaders.

These measures helped to ensure that key areas right across the District, including Council-owned elderly people’s accommodation were cleared effectively.

The crews, along with the market workforce, also worked hard to keep the pathways along St Peter’s Street in St Albans clear so that the market could stay open for business throughout the week prior to Christmas Day.