Aragon Direct Services

Garden waste collections in Peterborough are to restart in May 2022.

Brown bin collections across the city have been suspended since September last year, due to issues caused by the national driver shortage.

However, Peterborough City Council and the authority’s waste contractor Aragon Direct Services are now in a position to resume collections from the week commencing Monday 2 May.

Recurring direct debit customers will not need to renew their subscriptions and the council will be contacting these customers shortly with details about the service for 2022/23. Customers who are not paying by recurring direct debit will need to subscribe for the service.

Anyone who would like to sign up for the service for 2022/23 can do so from Monday 4 April. The quickest way to do this is and beat the queues is by visiting www.peterborough.gov.uk/brownbins otherwise you can also sign up by calling Aragon Direct Customer Services on 01733 425425 between 9am – 5pm from Monday to Friday.

The annual cost for one brown bin remains at £50 and for a second brown bin is an extra £25.

Garden waste collections will now take place on the same week as refuse collections (black bins) – please visit the council’s website for details of collection days.

Councillor Nigel Simons, Cabinet Member for Waste, Street Scene and the Environment, Peterborough City Council, said: “I’m delighted to announce that garden waste collections are restarting in Peterborough. With spring under way, more people will be out in their gardens doing work and wanting to get rid of the waste, so I’m sure this will be welcome news.

“The garden waste service is extremely well valued by customers and I would urge anyone considering signing up to do so. Residents can also take garden waste to the Household Recycling Centre in Fengate.

“It was a difficult decision to suspend the service, but by doing so we ensured the continuation of essential recycling, refuse and food waste collections. However, we would again apologise for the disruption and impact on our customers this caused.”

ENDS

​

From 1st March, residents are being reminded to ensure that their bins are out nice and early, from 6.45am, as the new city-wide changes to recycling and waste collections come into force. Some residents will have been assigned a new bin collection day whilst all residents will need to ensure that their bins are at the boundary of their property and ready for collection anytime between 6.45am and 6.00pm. Aragon Direct Services’, Director of Operations, Ian Spence told us; “it is really important we get the message out about the changes to our refuse collections, as we want to avoid any missed bins on our weekly rounds – all residents are affected by the new extended collection times and over half will have a new collection day. We have sent out information to all households, so hopefully nobody will get caught out by not having their bin out on the correct day at the correct time!”

Aragon have sent information to all households detailing the changes to collection times, it also serves as a really useful reminder to keep at home, ensuring residents know which items are suitable for their black, green and grey food-caddy bins. Managing Director, Kitran Eastman said; “whilst we have been informing residents of these operational changes via our leaflet, we have used the opportunity to try to increase our rates of recycling and food waste collection across the city – I hope everyone places the leaflet on their fridge as a handy reminder when it comes to items we throw away. We are also encouraging residents to ‘wash it and squash it’ before recycling – it would be great if the whole city could get behind this message”.

The city has grown rapidly over the last decade and, what was once a balanced and efficient collection model, now needs some changes. Over time we have seen a significant increase in the number of properties we collect from, with the majority of this growth occurring in the south of the Authority. This means that more vehicles and crews are needed at the end of the week than the beginning of the week. Therefore, we are changing the recycling and waste collection rounds to improve service efficiency, to even out the workload and to provide the platform for a better service for many years to come. This will also help the pressure on the number of Drivers which are needed at any one time.

For more details about refuse collection in your area, recycling and more, visit www.peterborough.gov.uk/rubbish-and-recycling.

Bin collection days will be changing on 1st March in some areas of the city as Aragon Direct Services, Peterborough City Council’s waste contractor, implement a revised recycling and waste collection round schedule to accommodate the rapid growth of housing in the city.

The first information about the changes will start to go out to all households soon. Residents should look out for pink stickers that are being placed on black bins over the next two weeks and a leaflet with a collection calendar that is being posted to all addresses in February.

Recent growth has seen significant increases in the number of properties on the South side of the city, which has had an impact on the number of vehicles and crew members required to complete the rounds on certain days.

Ian Spence, Director of Operations for Aragon Direct Services, further explains:

“Adjusting the rounds allows the workload to be evened out across the week and means that the service will be more efficient and sustainable as Peterborough continues to grow in the future.”

“There hasn’t been a major revision to recycling and waste collection rounds in Peterborough for 12 years, so we hope that residents will appreciate the need for the change and soon get used to their new collection day.”

Not all areas will be affected by the change, however confirmation will be provided to all residents along with a useful reminder of what waste is appropriate for each type of bin. The changes will take place from 1st March.