With nearly double the amount of recyclables left curbside, the city has ended up with a post-holiday recycling collection backlog.
Some northeast London homes that were to see their blue boxes emptied on Thursday will be forced to wait until Friday as crews backtracked to the previous day's collection zone, where roughly 1,600 northwest homes didn't see their scheduled pickup.
"With the holiday season we always see an increased amount of recyclables being placed at the curb. There is also a longer cycle time between pickups. As a result of those two items, what we see is about a doubling in the amount of recyclable materials that are collected in any zone, at any time," said Jay Stanford, director of environment, fleet and solid waste for the city.
Crews worked until 8pm on Wednesday collecting 180 tonnes of recyclables from Zone B.
"Typically, 90 tonnes of recyclables are collected per day," said Stanford.
By 9am Thursday, collection in the northwest end was caught up but that meant a delayed start to the day's regular collection route.
Stanford advises anyone whose recyclables are not pickup as scheduled to leave them at the curb.
"We will get them first thing Friday," he said. "Collection should be back on track by Friday evening. With our collection in Zone D, we are actually out of the lengthy cycle time so we should be back into the routine amount of materials that turn up at the curb for recycling."