THE recycling sites at Minehead, Williton and Poole, near Wellington, have been accepting more materials this week.

All 16 sites in Somerset started on Monday taking plastic pots, tubs and trays; waste wood – man-made and natural; small household electrical items, such as toasters; and paint.

This was as well as the other materials already being accepted as the service moves back towards business as usual after sites were closed due to Covid-19.

Any items recycling site visitors would usually pay to have disposed of are not being accepted, such as commercial waste, tyres, gas bottles, soil and hardcore, vehicle parts, plasterboard and asbestos.

All sites are now open for their usual summer hours and the odd and even number plate access system is no longer in place.

Somerset Waste Partnership (SWP) is advising people only to go to sites if they really need to. Long queues are expected, especially first thing in the morning, as the number of unloading bays has been reduced to allow social distancing. Other access restrictions remain in place: maximum of two people per household; gloves must be worn; strict social distancing; trailers and 3.5-tonne vans only allowed access 4-6pm weekdays.

SWP managing director Mickey Green said: “This is another big step forward and we thank everyone for their continued patience and understanding. Social distancing measures will remain for the foreseeable future, so the advice remains to only come if you really need to because you may find yourself facing a lengthy wait.

“We’re all trying to get back to as close to normal as possible and in Somerset that means great recycling. Most people in Somerset recycle and that helps protect our environment and tackle climate change.

“Recycling everything you can and making sure it’s properly sorted into the containers helps us reuse and recycle more than 130,000 tonnes of waste each year, of which more than 90 per cent stays in the UK.”

Access to most recycling skips is not possible. Unless visitors really need to, they should not take materials that can go in the continuing weekly recycling collections – these will temporarily be landfilled.