There are still some delays in picking up glass recycling crates across some suburbs of Hamilton, as the effects of severe staff shortages continue to bite.

Hamilton City Council’s Rubbish and Recycling Transitional Manager, Trent Fowles, said contractor EnviroWaste Limited was suffering from the lack of trained staff which has been made worse by nationwide driver shortages.

“We had hoped we would be through the worst of these shortages by now but unfortunately there has been a really long tail on this,” said Fowles.

“We understand this situation can be trying for some residents who’ll be wondering why the pickup of their glass crates is taking much longer than it should.”

Fowles said EnviroWaste is working to get additional staff on board, and he expects any delays to the service to be resolved over the next few weeks.

“We encourage residents to still put their crates out on their normal collection day.

“If your bin has been missed on your usual pickup day, please leave it out for another day or so. If it’s still not been picked up by then, it may have genuinely been missed, so contact us to let us know if that’s the case.”

EnviroWaste will be doing additional glass crate collections each Saturday until the issue is resolved. We recommend you bring the crate back in Saturday evening if not collected and return to the kerbside before 7am on Monday.

Fowles said Hamiltonians’ patience around these issues has been much appreciated.

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“We can’t thank people enough for their understanding and we want them to know that we, our contractor and their staff are all grateful for their ongoing support while things come right – which hopefully will be sooner rather than later.”

Hamiltonians can receive updates on this and other Council services via mobile using the Antenno app, which can be downloaded free from the App Store or Google Play.

More information on Hamilton’s rubbish and recycling kerbside collection service, including an online recycling sorting tool, is available at fightthelandfill.co.nz

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