Words cannot describe the joy Edinburgers felt this morning hearing the bin lorries finally coming to the rescue. As the city was piled up in rubbish, residents have been storing their waste indoors as much as they could from August 18 until August 30 when the current strike came to an end. However, no agreement has been reached with COSLA, meaning that the second wave of Edinburgh bin strikes is planned to go ahead next week in the hopes a better pay deal for the council workers can be reached.
Unite the union has strictly rejected the offer made by COSLA, the umbrella organisation for the council. With the new offer, some workers would be earning as little as £989 with the majority affected being women. Unite is also prepared to avoid further bin strikes by being open to further talks.
As the streets are being cleaned up after 12 days of strikes, the areas most affected are the focus, so just take your general waste bins out on your normal collection days and place any bagged-up waste next to the bin. If they do not get picked up, leave them out until they are. Also, glass recycling will not be picked up at this time, as the main focus will be general waste. For individual households, only one type of bin will be picked up at a time. So, be patient and continue to do your best, as the backlog could take up until September 6. As you can imagine, a multitude of bin bags and loose rubbish all need to be collected by hand.
As the Edinburgh Fringe is over and the masses of tourists leave the city, residents will be preparing for the second wave of strikes. You can also read about how to best navigate Edinburgh bin strikes here. People are also being urged to leave the rubbish be and not to organise mass clean-ups during the strikes to help achieve the best possible outcome for the workers.