GREEN bin waste collection is to be restarted on a partial basis in South Lakeland on Monday after resumption of the service was postponed.

"Quite a few staff are still suffering from Covid, some are shielding and others have had to self-isolate, so we made the decision to postpone the restart," said Cllr Philip Dixon, SLDC portfolio holder for customer and commercial services.

Green bin collection will take place once a month from next week following suspension of the service as per normal during December and January.

The suspension of the service was to allow crews to focus on grey bin and recycling collection over the busy Christmas period, and to reduce the council's carbon footprint.

The public is being asked to check their collection calendars from next week. If a bin is put out and not collected, crews will return and collect it on the next scheduled collection day.

"We are very sorry but we are where we are and these are the constraints we are working under at the moment," said Cllr Dixon.

"We will seek to resume normal service as soon as we can.

"Our normal collection rate for recyclables was around 26 tonnes per day, but over the past year that has been in excess of 30 tonnes, a rise of more than 15 per cent.

"The impact of Covid is quite remarkable on the amount of recyclable green waste there was last year and, right throughout the year, our teams have been working far harder to shift the increased amount of recyclables.

"Our recycling rates for January this year, for example, are up 33 per cent on the same period last year."