UPDATE: All recycling sites have reverted to their usual summer schedules and are taking a growing range of materials. Restrictions remain on vehicles, materials and visitors to ensure social distancing and safety.

Changes have been made to all Somerset recycling sites’ opening hours to better meet existing and future demand, with full weekends at every site, and later hours on weekdays in both summer and winter.

To see the hours in full or download site-by-site or district-by-district timetables, scroll down.

The sites upgrade is part of the transformation of Somerset waste services, such as extra weekly recycling, three-weekly rubbish collections and a switch from landfilling refuse in Somerset to sending almost all of it to an energy-from-waste plant in 2020.

It reflects the demands of users making more than 1.6 million visits a year and successfully recycling – with help from site staff — 77% of the 69,094 tonnes of household waste they bring in.

The upgrade agreed by Somerset Waste Board includes:

• Year-round 9am-4pm weekend hours at all sites on Sundays as well as Saturdays
• Later summer (6pm Apr-Sep) and winter (5pm Oct-Mar) weekday closing
• Same number or extra days at 10 sites, including Chard and Wells (Dulcote)
• Fewer days at six, such as saved-from-closure Crewkerne and Dulverton
• Reflecting low user numbers early in the day, all sites will start work at 9am
• No site closures and an end to £2 cash entry fees by April 2020
• With 6pm summer weekday closing, an end to underused 7pm Monday evenings

Users of Crewkerne and Dulverton, the sites with lowest use and highest per visit costs, have fewer hours but benefit from the end of their £2 cash entry fees from April 2020 as Somerset’s waste progress gathers pace.

The upgrade, from behind the scenes improvements to a small overall reduction in site hours, form part of a contract extension deal that will save a total of more than £14 million.

SWP managing director Mickey Green said: “These improvements reflect what customers have told us they want, especially all sites opening Sunday afternoons and later summer evenings.

“Most importantly, they ensure all 16 sites stay open, and that each site’s hours carefully match the existing use and future needs as Somerset’s population and housing stock expands.”

By sorting all materials in advance and following staff advice, residents not only ensured that 77% was recycled, but delivered such high quality streams of material that almost all of that was then recycled in the UK, and the majority was recycled in Somerset, cutting everyone’s energy miles and carbon footprint.

You can download copies of the new time tables of the sites in your area, valid from 1 April 2019, below.

Opening days, site by site

NB: All Saturdays and Sundays are 9am-4pm year-round; all weekdays are 9am-6pm April-September, and 9am-5pm October-March.