Residents in Bath and North East Somerset who have been affected by suspended garden waste collections are being advised of the arrangements being made to catch up with the services.

In recent weeks, Bath & North East Somerset Council has suspended some garden waste collections due to the national shortage of HGV drivers and staff sickness, to prioritise kerbside recycling and waste services.

Garden waste collections were due to go into the annual shutdown period from December 6 until January 16, but the council will now be using the first two weeks of the shutdown to provide an additional collection for residents whose services were suspended on November 11 and between November 15 and 19.

As some collections did take place during suspensions, the additional collections will only be for those rounds who had the service suspended as compensation for the missed collection.

Collection rounds suspended on November 11 will have an extra collection on December 9 as compensation.

Collection rounds suspended in the week beginning November 15 will have an extra collection on the usual collection day during the week beginning December 13.

Depending on the method by which they receive their bills, each garden waste subscriber who has had their service suspended will receive an email, text or letter advising them of when their additional collection will be.

For residents whose garden waste collections were not affected, the last day of the usual garden waste collections will be December 3 followed by the six-week shut down period.

Any communications about delays to collections will continue to be listed on the waste disruptions page https://beta.bathnes.gov.uk/waste-disruptions

Councillor David Wood, cabinet member for Neighbourhood Services, said: "We are grateful to residents for bearing with us as we try to manage services as best we can in the face of staff shortages. We are sorry that some garden waste collections have been affected and have put these arrangements in place to compensate for this.

"Our crews are working hard to minimise disruption and to catch up, but it would really help them if residents could follow our tips for what can be recycled and to make the best use of space in containers. Particularly important at this time of year is to minimise black bin waste by considering resuable alternatives to wrapping paper such as fabric, newspaper or brown paper. Wrapping paper, including Christmas paper, cannot be recycled."

To make the best use of space in recycling containers and to help crews with efficient collections, residents are asked to:

Sort your green boxes to help speed up the collections (having two boxes helps considerably if you have room to store two) – follow Recycle for Bathnes on Facebook for tips

Wash and squash materials such as plastics to make more space and keep your containers as clean as possible

Things that cannot be collected in recycling:

Black plastic, polystyrene, plastic film or hard plastics such as toys or hangers

Any cardboard should have any plastic, sticky tape and polystyrene removed

Nappies cannot be recycled – do not put them in your green box

Wrapping paper (including Christmas paper)