Bins left full for 10 weeks in waste row

HOUSEHOLDERS were forced to clean up piles of their neighbours’ recycling waste after a council refused to empty wheelie bins for ten weeks.

The 18 bins were left to overflow because some had been ‘contaminated’ with the wrong sort of rubbish.

Banned items such as food waste and dirty nappies had been put in with legitimate recyclable products, so binmen refused to collect any of the neighbourhood’s containers.

With bins smelling and overflowing after two-and-half months, the stand- off on a street in Hull ended when communityspirited residents rummaged through all of the waste to sort it. The bins have now been emptied by the council. One resident, Anthony Robinson, said: ‘People from the street have had to go through and sort everyone’s bins out to make sure the council take them away. We shouldn’t need to do that.’

He criticised the local authority for not educating everyone about the recycling system.

The dispute began after Hull council launched its Bin Smart campaign policed by a team of blue-uniformed ‘recycling advisers’ to check what people were putting in their blue bins. The authority hoped to save £500,000 by ensuring people put only the ‘cor- rect waste’ in bins – excluding items such as nappies, unwashed yoghurt pots and halffilled drinks bottles. Residents said a few rule-breaking households were causing the problem and forcing law-abiding neighbours to clean up the rubbish.

An elderly local added: ‘The blue bins are supposed to be for plastics and paper – but they don’t take any of them away if a few of the bins are covered in rotting food … it is a constant battle between the neighbours.’

A council spokesman said any contamination renders the entire load unsuitable for recycling, adding: ‘This collection policy has been widely communicated to residents for the last seven years.’