If you have a disability or medical condition that stops you putting your bins out, and there’s no-one else to do it for you, you can apply for an assisted bin collection. You can do this regardless of your age.
The scheme applies automatically to your grey bin. You can include your recycling bins if you produce a large amount of recycling. This is classed as:
- at least half a bin of recycling waste every four weeks
- at least half a bin of green waste every two weeks.
You need to tell us when you apply if you want to include your recycling bins.
If you don't produce this much recycling, you can put all of your waste into your grey bin and we'll arrange to remove your recycling bins. Our waste treatment plant which processes grey bin waste can separate small quantities of recycling materials from grey bin waste. This means that even if you put your recycling materials in your grey bin, they'll still be recycled.
Eligibility
To be eligible for assisted collections you must:
- Have a medical condition or disability that prevents you from being able to put your bin out, or not physically be able to do this. We'll need to see medical evidence to prove that you can't put your bins out for collection. Evidence can be in the form of disability or mobility benefit, or confirmation from your GP or hospital clinic.
- Have no other resident living at your property who's able to put the bins out for you. If there's more than one person living at your property you need to provide proof of infirmity or disability for each person.
- Have no other members of family living within the grounds of the same property. You need to include details of any of these family members in your application.
Risk assessments
After you've applied for an assisted collection we'll carry out a risk assessment before we can approve your request.
We'll visit your property to look into:
- visible risks
- any pets
- the distance to your collection point
- underfoot conditions
- suitable lighting at your property
We might ask for your bins to be moved so we can access them easier.
You need to make sure that all risks are reduced, and that the paths and surfaces where the bins will be moved are kept clear so we can safely collect and return them.
We can withdraw the service if a risk assessment shows it may cause a risk to our collection crew, or if the site conditions change and it's no longer safe for our crew to attend. For example a change in the underfoot conditions or a new pet.
We might ask you to use sacks for your waste if there isn't a suitable place for a bin. You'll then need to put all of your waste into these. We won't remove any loose waste or collect any sacks that are over-loaded, split or in a poor condition.
How to apply
You can apply for an assisted collection by calling us on (01226) 773555. We'll send you a form to fill in and return, which needs to include all relevant medical/disability details for everyone living at your property.
After receiving your form we'll visit your property to complete our risk assessment. If you're eligible and our risk assessment is satisfactory, we'll tell you the date when your assisted bin collections will begin.
If you don't qualify for an assisted bin collection we'll tell you the reasons why.
Changing address or cancelling an assisted bin collection
Please tell us if you change address or want to cancel help to put your bins out.
Refund of application fees
Following a review of our assisted bin collection service, we no longer charge a fee when you apply.
If you previously applied and paid the fee, you can request the application fee to be refunded. In the online form you'll need to tell us the:
- Name the application was made in.
- Address the bin collection was for.
- Bank details of the account we should refund the fee to.
You can apply for a refund up until 1 March 2024.