Covid bin collection chaos: Why nobody is collecting your bins

Covid is wreaking havoc across waste collection in Sydney with several councils reporting severe delays. Union bosses are now warning it is going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Covid has thrown rubbish collection across Sydney into disarray with staff shortages resulting in overflowing bins.

With the total active Covid cases in the state nearing 350,000 and daily new cases registering within the 30,000s, rubbish collection has come under severe strain.

As well as workers struck down with Covid many others are stuck in isolation.

The Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), which represents contracted rubbish collectors used by councils, has warned the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better.

“It's going to get worse as more people get infected – we haven’t potentially hit the peak yet,” a union spokesman said.

Uncollected yellow bins on Ashmore Street in Erskineville.

“Garbage collection is one of those industries where it doesn’t take many workers going into isolation to cause a significant disruption.”

He explained given tight schedules coupled with a limited pool of replacement casuals, bin runs were easily thrown in chaos.

“There’s thousands of active cases in every council area in Sydney, and in the bigger councils like Canterbury Bankstown and Blacktown there’s upwards of 20,000 active Covid cases.

“So it only takes two or three out of those 20,000 cases to be garbage collectors, and then you’ll start feeling the disruption.”

One of the badly hit areas is Strathfield, where collections continue to be disrupted.

“I think it’s two or three garbage collectors that are in isolation there,” he said. “But that’s enough.”

In Erskineville bins are overflowing on some streets as workers struggle with a backlog.

The City of Sydney is the council responsible for the inner city suburb.

“Like many service providers, the City of Sydney’s cleansing and waste teams have been impacted by the recent surge in Covid case numbers, which are causing disruptions to our collections,” a council spokeswoman said.

She added the workers would prioritise collection of red and yellow bins.

“We are asking residents to leave their booked items and green waste bins out and we will collect them as soon as possible,” she said.

Bin collectors across Sydney have been affected by Covid-19 and close-contact isolation requirements, throwing services into disarray and putting a strain on staff. Generic image of rubbish collectors.

Strathfield Council warned residents on social media to expect delays and explained it had two waste staff off with Covid and two on annual leave.

“The council has endeavoured to catch up on services and is expected to be back to full service by tomorrow,” a spokeswoman said. “We are also monitoring waste staff daily.”

TWU said staff shortages at Randwick Council has led to workers being handed extra hours to cope with demand.

As a result the unions said collections that would normally finish by late morning are now stretching to midafternoon.

“We've just heard that they’re going to be going until two or three this afternoon,” the TWU spokesman said.

“When you think they’re starting at 4am, that is a very long day, and they’re expecting that they’ll have to do that all week.”

Uncollected yellow bins on Ashmore Street in Erskineville.

Randwick Council said in a statement: “Currently, we have extended the timings of collections in order to maintain our waste collection schedule.

“Frontline workers, including our waste truck drivers, have continued to go above and beyond to ensure our community is supported during this challenging time and we value their efforts.”

Councils in Sydney’s south have also been hit badly.

Georges River Council confirmed services had been impacted by increased Covid cases and subsequent staff shortages.

“If your bin, and other bins in your street have been missed, you do not need to log a missed service,” the council said.

“A waste collection vehicle will empty your bin as soon as possible. Please be patient and leave your bin on the kerbside until it is emptied.”

Bayside Council confirmed it is also dealing with delays, particularly in Rockdale, Bexley, Banksia, Arncliffe and Carlton.

“Unfortunately, due to an increase in Covid positive and close contact cases and wanting to keep our community safe, the collection of kerbside household clean-ups may experience a delay in certain areas,” the council said.

“Please do not be concerned, as your collection will be completed within the following days.”

Elsewhere in Sydney, Kuring-gai Council, Fairfield City Council and the City of Canterbury Bankstown also said waste collection services had been hit.

Meanwhile the City of Parramatta and Penrith City Council said more general face-to-face services could be impacted by Covid infections.

Rubbish collection teams are either unable to collect all the bins in their route, or doing overtime to reach them all.

The TWU is also warning hiring extra staff is proving difficult due to labour shortages across multiple industries and the short-term casual market drying up.

“It's not a case of waste management companies being stingy,” the TWU said. “A lot of the time they come back to us and say: ‘Look, we’re trying, we just can’t find anyone’.”

Unlike the food packing industry, which was granted certain isolation exemptions on Sunday so as to mitigate the effect on food shelves, no exemption has been forthcoming for bin collectors.

Although without an abundant supply of Rapid Antigen Tests (RATs) the situation won’t improve anyway, the TWU said.

Uncollected yellow bins on Ashmore Street in Erskineville, one of the many suburbs affected in the city.

“We’re not entirely comfortable with the idea of sending a potentially infectious close-contact person into the workplace,” a union spokesman said. “But when you couple that with it requiring workers to go out and find their own rapid antigen tests, which is not the easiest thing to do, it’s an unworkable solution.”

Even if more RATs are forthcoming – both for frontline industries and the general public – it may be too late to mitigate the disruption in bin collection.

“We could end up in a pretty perilous position in terms of the amount of workers that are going to be in isolation over the next couple of weeks,” the union spokesman said.

“It will most likely be, if not too little, certainly too late.”