A request to support households dealing with the difficult situation of dirty diapers and intense heat has been turned down because the council does not have enough resources available.
Ward representative Jan Matecki (Conservative, Budbrooke) this week asked Warwick District Council whether it should temporarily return to fortnightly household waste collections during extended periods of warm weather.
The council leader, Councillor Ian Davison (Green, Leamington Brunswick), described the idea as reasonable, but pointed out that the expenses and practical arrangements involved meant it could not be implemented.
A waste management partnership with Stratford-on-Avon District Council led to the change from fortnightly to three-weekly collections of non-recyclable refuse from summer 2022.
Recyclable items are still gathered every two weeks, while food waste is collected weekly, but the extreme temperatures in recent weeks have caused a particularly unpleasant problem.
Cllr Matecki explained that he had been approached at a parish council meeting with what he considered an excellent suggestion regarding the general waste collection service, which currently operates on a three-weekly schedule.
People expressed worry that households with babies and toddlers might generate substantial amounts of soiled diapers, which become unhygienic during severe heat conditions.
He questioned whether the council could consider boosting the frequency of general waste collections given the current temperatures and potential health risks that might arise.
Cllr Davison responded that while he considered it a reasonable question, the existing collection routes had no available capacity to handle such a change.
Moving from a three-week to a two-week schedule would require another van and additional crew members, representing significant expenditure.
The challenge of recruiting temporary staff for this purpose was raised, along with the issue of vehicles standing unused for extended periods. Planning ahead proved problematic since heatwaves could not be reliably forecast.
He acknowledged that he could not see a way to implement the change, though he fully accepted that items such as diapers were particularly foul-smelling.
Bags of waste placed beside grey bins are not collected, though homes that cannot store bins because of access or space restrictions do have their bags taken or larger shared bins emptied every two weeks.