When will recycling collections resume?

100 days since the all out bin strike, I have today sent this question to Cabinet Member for the Environment and Transport – Councillor Majid Mahmood:

Residents in this city have endured almost six months of bin strikes with no end in sight.

Although most (not all) residents are now receiving some waste collections, recycling has been suspended since the beginning of the year and garden waste collections never got started. Residents report storing bags of recycling in their houses, sheds and gardens and even more has been left out so long it is now contaminated.

Our recycling levels were already amongst the worst in the country, so please can you advise when recycling collections will be re-instated in the city? 

Many people cannot get to the recycling centres but could manage a visit to one of the MHWC sites.

When the MHWC came to Cannon Hill Park I asked if a recycling truck could be included. I was told it wasn’t possible. Yet, there was plenty of room for both recycling and garden waste trucks.

I have also contacted Smurfitt Kappa who say it is perfectly possible for them to send a cardboard collection truck as part of an MHWC.  However, my email suggestion that this be explored has been ignored. 

Could you please explain why a recycling wagon and garden waste wagon cannot be part of the Mobile Household Waste Centres at locations where there is room for them?