BIN crews in the Scottish capital are to be issued with sat navs to help them find bins as complaints over missed collections soared to an average 1,000 a week.
Edinburgh City Council is to trial using sat navs as part of a package of measures to stem the rise of complaints up, 18,000 to 53,000 in the past year.
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The council’s head of cleansing said while £7 million had been made in savings since 2012 modernisation programme began the use of agency workers and unclear work route plans has led to bins being left overflowing for more than a week.
Waste and cleansing manager Gareth Barwell said the overhaul of the service was needed after historical "bizarre" working practices - which included a four day shift pattern meaning the fifth day was paid as overtime, an ageing an inefficient fleet and 30 per cent recycling.
Cleansing chiefs insist bin crews do not deliberately ignore full bins adding that they may not always be obvious - “the west of the city is a prime example bins may belong to an address but are presented at the garage site behind the property that you enter from a different street”.
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Mr Barwell said the council is to start a satellite navigation technology trial trial within the next month to “move forward with the sat nav approach which will allow us to evaluate over a four week period - four collection cycles - feedback from the drivers and the crews”.
He said while bins could be missed once or twice due to a crew's unfamiliarity with the route, repeated failings are unacceptable, and crews will be more "settled".
He added recycling is up to 42 per cent and there was a 300 per cent rise in the last year in glass recycling.
Most complaints related to the city's 100,000 tenements while many in the 140,000 houses were more satisfied with the service.
Mr Barwell added: "I can see why residents sometimes feel that it is why sometimes it is falling on deaf ears but there is a lot of work being done and there is an acknowledgement that we have got to make these improvements."
SNP councillor Lewis Ritchie said there has been little visual improvement, adding: “In that February period I was absolutely inundated by very reasonable complaints from residents who said the system is broken."
Conservative transport spokesman Nick Cook, who obtained the statistics from council officials, said the figures are staggering.
He said: "For four years now, Edinburgh City Council has breezily acknowledged there is 'room for improvement'.
"Yet it continues to deliver none of the genuine reform needed to improve bin collection services. Edinburgh taxpayers deserve better."
Lesley Hinds, Edinburgh City Council environment convener, said: “All elected members will be well aware how important an issue refuse collection is to their constituents and the Council is absolutely committed to delivering the best possible services we can for the people of Edinburgh.
"We fully appreciate how frustrating missed bin collections can be for residents and we’re working extremely hard to make significant improvements across the board – to our systems, our staff training, our facilities and more.
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"Councillors on both the Transport and Environment Committee and Governance, Risk and Best Value Committee have received a presentation detailing these service improvements.”
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