Flintshire Council set to reopen Household Recycling Centres on Tuesday, May 26

Flintshire Council has said its Household Recycling Centres will reopen on Tuesday, May 26. 

Like all councils across Wales, Flintshire Council closed it’s household waste and recycling centres when strict lockdown measures were introduced in March in a bid stop the spread of coronavirus.

When they do reopen the tips will operate between 9am and 8pm daily.

A council spokesperson said: “We have been keen to reopen our centres as they are so important to our public. 

All centres across Wales were closed in March because public travel to the centres – for recycling and waste disposal – was classed as non-essential travel under the emergency Government regulations.

We have been working closely with Welsh Government on plans to re-open our sites, alongside all other councils in Wales, with a reopening target date for the end of May. 

Welsh Government has this week passed regulations to re-allow public transport to centres. This means that we can now ‘press go’ on our plans to re-open.”

Wrexham council said it was opening its recycling centres on Friday but most councils in Wales will be reopening their centres around the same time as Flintshire.

“We are not in a position to bring forward our target date as we have deployed the operational teams who work at the centres to help with the interim household garden collection service which is running this week and next week.

Reopening the centres on a bank holiday weekend could lead to long queues to the frustration of customers and operators alike. By reopening on a Tuesday demand is more likely to be spread across the week – avoiding long queues which could spill onto the highway and lead to traffic congestion and the risk of traffic collisions.”

Demand is expected to be very high in the first week and the centres will be carefully managed to ensure the safety of users and employees, the council has called for “everyone’s cooperation in avoiding making a trip in the first few days if they can.”

The following safety controls will be in place at the centres:

• full compliance with all health and safety regulations and government guidance;
• the availability of appropriate sanitation stations for site users and operatives;
• social distancing measures for customers and operatives with no assistance able to be given to customers to remove and carry materials from their vehicles;
• traffic management and control systems with limited numbers of vehicles allowed in at a time.

To help reduce the early demand at the centres the council has resumed garden waste collections – for a two week period only from Monday 11 May to Saturday 23 May – for residents who subscribed to the service for either 2019 or 2020. 

More information on accessing the centres will come out next week