Now 75% of UK has no weekly waste collection

FAMILIES now wait at least two weeks for their rubbish to be collected across more than three quarters of the country.

With councils cutting services to save money, there has been a dramatic increase this year in the numbers losing weekly collections.

Many residents now complain of having rubbish rotting on their driveways for as long as a month – causing infestations of rats, maggot and flies.

Some have had to burn their waste or stand in bins to cram it in and save space. Of 264 councils in England and Wales surveyed by the Mail, just 63 collect general waste at least once a week. Some 201 – more than three quarters – pick up waste at most once a fortnight. This is a dramatic change since last summer, when an investigation found two thirds collected bins every two weeks.

At least 18 councils have moved to or will shortly move to threeweekly rubbish collections, including Bury, Oldham and Salford in Greater Manchester, North Devon, Isle of Anglesey, Powys in mid Wales and Conwy in north Wales.

The findings demonstrate the spectacular failure of the Tories’ pledge in opposition and in coalition that they would restore the weekly bin round.

European Union targets demand at least half of household waste is recycled by 2020, with failure risking fines for the UK of up to £500,000 a day.

In Conwy, around 10,000 homes have been subjected to a trial over the past year that involves them having their general waste collected only once every four weeks. They told the Mail their streets had been turned into a ‘cesspit’, smelling of rotten food and attracting vermin.

Some have resorted to burning waste in a coal fire or bonfires in their gardens. Others ask elderly neighbours, who generate less waste, if they can put rubbish in their bins. June Owens, 75, gets her eldest grandson to climb into her bin with a stepladder to cram in as much in as possible.

‘Just before the bins are ready to be taken away the whole place is stinking. We get rats in the garden. It’s bloody terrible,’ she said.

Residents have to sort rubbish before it is collected. While general waste is picked up monthly, there are weekly collections of food waste, paper and card, cans, plastics, cardboard, glass, cartons and household batteries. Those with young children or who care for elderly people can also request a caddy for nappies.

There are fortnightly collections of garden waste, textiles, shoes and small electrical items.

Mrs Owens’ next-door neighbour Mavis Davis, 73, a retired nurse, cares for her husband Robert, 81. She said: ‘After three weeks there are flies all over the place. It’s disgusting. Now there’s a bin for nappies and incontinence pads. It’s degrading for elderly people, everybody knowing their business.’

Bill Darwin, 64, former mayor of Kinmel Bay in Conwy and a local councillor until May, said the area was a ‘health time bomb’, adding: ‘We’re getting more stories of rats. We have an increase in fly tipping.’

Conwy council said it moved to three or four-weekly general waste collections following a review that found £1.6million could have been saved in a year by people recycling more. A spokesman added: ‘The reaction from the public has been extremely positive. There is no evidence of an increase in vermin. There has not been a noticeable increase in fly tipping.’