Please help us to keep city clean during pandemic - Lesley Macinnes

It’s been fantastic to see Edinburgh coming alive this summer, with so many people out and about enjoying our beautiful parks and open spaces.

Cllr Lesley Macinnes SNP Councillor for Liberton/Gilmerton Transport and Environment Convener

And with the city now out of Level 0 Covid restrictions, and festival season back up and running (albeit on a smaller scale), we’re now seeing many more visitors returning to our stunning city.

This is, of course, a much-needed boost to the local economy, especially for hospitality businesses, but also brings with it added pressure on our Council teams, including waste and cleansing.

We’ve already put at least 30 extra bins at ‘hotspot’ areas throughout the city including specific BBQ bins in busy parks where we know residents and visitors are out enjoying themselves. We’ll also be working with the organisers of the Fringe to make sure they keep the High Street and surrounding area clean and properly managed in the coming weeks.

Another pressure comes from the thousands of us who continue to work (and generate waste!) from home. To give an example, in June this year, we collected 3,000 more tonnes of domestic waste and recycling compared to the same month pre-Covid in 2019.

Weeds have proven to be another challenge after the recent hot and then very wet weather, plus the fact our cleansing team is currently working at up to 50% reduced capacity due to self-isolation requirements. We recognise that parts of the city are in need of attention and we will be enlisting extra resources to tackle this. You can help by letting us know which areas are especially challenging and we’ll attend to it as soon as we can. My thanks too to everyone who’s taken the opportunity to weed outside their homes – it’s very much appreciated.

Our waste and cleansing teams deserve a huge amount of credit for their commitment and hard work over the past 17 months and it was a joy to see how many of you took the time to say thank you – clapping them, leaving notes on your bins and in your windows. It meant so much to them.

But the pandemic is still with us and will be for some time to come. Our teams will continue day after day to deliver a quality service during what continues to be an unbelievably busy time – with higher demands set against staff shortages caused by the pandemic.

So, please help them to do their jobs by reporting overflowing communal (or other) bins and by using our map to find a nearby bin if you find your closest one is full.

And, if there are delays with household collections, or we haven’t got something quite right, please let us know – and we’ll do everything we can to resolve any issues as quickly as we can. You can check for any service delays in your area on our website.If you have larger items that can be reused check out the Reuse Tool to give them a new home. You can also book a special uplift, or if you can it’s quick and easy to book a slot at one of our Household Waste Recycling Centres.

We’ll continue to work hard to improve our services across the city – such as rolling out communal bin hubs throughout Edinburgh to make recycling easier and more accessible.

I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer and have the chance to enjoy some of the Festival. And, while you’re doing so, please continue to support the crews who’ve done so much to keep your city clean and tidy in the most challenging of circumstances.

Cllr Lesley Macinnes is Transport and Environment Convener