Following the successful reopening of 19 of North Yorkshire’s 20 household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) earlier this month, the majority of the sites are now reverting to their normal opening hours.
The HWRCs have been open seven days a week, including Wednesdays, when they would normally close, for a temporary period to help clear the backlog of waste that accumulated in people’s homes during the lockdown.
Now, 18 of the sites will revert to their normal opening hours and days of 08:30am to 5pm six days a week and will close on Wednesdays from 27 May.
This change back to normal opening times will apply to all sites except West Harrogate, which will continue to be open seven days a week as a further temporary measure while the Harrogate Stonefall site remains closed. Harrogate Stonefall and all mobile HWRCs remain closed for safety reasons.
Cllr Andrew Lee, Executive Member for Waste Management, said:
I would like to thank the North Yorkshire residents for their understanding, and for playing their part by continuing to recycle and dispose of their waste responsibly and only visiting the sites when they can’t store their waste at home. All the sites that have reopened have been managed well by our contractor Yorwaste with new controls to keep the public and staff safe.
We encourage everyone to continue to reduce, re-use and recycle all they can, and to stay alert, control the virus and save lives.
Details of opening times and days can be found at www.northyorks.gov.uk/CovidHWRC
People are reminded not to put masks, gloves or other personal protective equipment (PPE) in their recycling. These items cannot be recycled. Throw them in the bin instead. Anyone who has coronavirus symptoms or lives with someone who does, needs to take extra precautions before throwing away PPE.
