Mayor joins in handing out of green and blue bags

GEORGE NEWS - In celebration of the restart of a recycling service George Mayor Leon van Wyk and Portfolio Cllr for Community Services Sean Snyman met up with the new recycling contractor, LGE Waste, in Pacaltsdorp on Thursday 4 March to personally hand out new bags to the public.

Charmaine Stols, a resident, was one of the first to receive her recycle bags directly from the mayor. Stols said she is very happy and thankful for the service because she wants to live in cleanliness.

Van Wyk said he came out with the contractor to see how they follow the route in Pacaltsdorp and how the service is being rolled out. “It is of outmost important to get the service up and running. It will take the contractor a few weeks to get back up to full speed and to work in the backlog,” he said.

“We ask the public to please remain patient and to phone in their complaints to the Cleansing Department. We hope that all residents will participate in the recycling and proper waste disposal and that illegal dumping will eventually become something of the past.”

Snyman said that George is moving in the right direction with the appointment of the new service provider. “The municipality had struggled for half a year to resolve the service issues. It should be much better from now onwards,” he said. The contractor confirmed that they have been handing out bags already to a lot of areas in George and will continue issuing blue and green bags as they work away the backlog.

The previous service provider Interwaste had closed its regional offices in George and ended its contract with the municipality in July of last year.

LGE Waste takes up the service as per the previous schedule and will be collecting green and blue bags from all areas that have a recent history of recycling. These include most suburbs of George – incorporating more recent participating areas Ballotsview, Borcherds, Conville, New Dawn Park, Delville Park, Pacaltsdorp, Parkdene, Protea Park, Rosemore and Sea View – as well as the outer areas of Wilderness, Kleinkrantz, Hoekwil, Victoria Bay and Herolds Bay.

Two green and two blue replacement bags will be issued to every household in the above-mentioned areas and thereafter to households in exchange for bags placed out.

Implementation in Haarlem and Uniondale is currently being investigated to ensure the most effective service, details of which will be announced to the affected communities as soon as arrangements have been finalised.

Service to Lawaaikamp and Thembalethu will, for now, be handled on request via the ward councillor or office numbers as listed below. The municipality and service provider hope to commence awareness campaigns in these areas as soon as Covid-19 restrictions allow, with the intent to roll out a more extensive service as more households participate.

Residents can put out four green bags and unlimited number of blue bags together with up to seven black bags on their scheduled removal day. Blue and green bags will be collected on the same day as black bags, but by different vehicles.

“While we expect the switch-over to go relatively smoothly from the first round, we appeal to residents to remain patient a little while longer should there be any hiccups. We thank residents who have kept the faith with us in these challenging times and hope that others will join our efforts as the service gains momentum once again,” said Mr Paulse.

Households or businesses that are actively recycling and require additional green or blue bags, can collect from George Municipality Environmental Services or LGE Waste (details below).