Prestatyn man puts up humorous signs on his uncollected bins

Dave Beattie, who lives on Beach Road East, has put a sign on his blue wheelie bin, which has been scrapped under the new system, saying: “I have now been made redundant. Please send me to a retirement home.”

On June 3, Denbighshire County Council has introduced changes to recycling and waste collections, including new containers and weekly collections for recyclable materials.

Residents are now required to separate their “dry” recycling using a three-tier “Trolibocs” service.

Denbighshire leader Cllr Jason McLellan with one of the council's new recycling ‘Trolibocs on wheels’ - to replace their blue bin.. (Image: Submitted)

Dave also put up signs on other bins saying: “I am impersonating a ‘Trollib*******’ plastic container”, “I am now an aspiring ‘Trollib*******’ glass container”, “I am an undercover ‘Trollib*******’ cardboard container”, and “I now want to recognise as a ‘Trollib*******’ metal container”.

On another bin, he has put a sign saying: “I am an apprentice waste food container”.

The council’s new system has encountered numerous problems in its first two weeks, with some residents not having their rubbish collected on time, if at all.

Dave said: “I just did it as a bit of humour, to brighten up yesterday. It’s made a lot of people laugh, to be fair.

“I’m ex-military, so I’m quite sarcastic when I want to be, and I have a very warped sense of humour!

“They haven’t collected my bins yet; last week’s collections were missed. They should be collected on June 20, but if they don’t change the way they’re doing things, they won’t get to us by then.

“I’m not angry about it - I’ve got plenty of room, so I’ll just keep piling the bins up and they can sit there until they collect them.

“If I need another bin, I’ll repurpose one of the energy containers I’ve got, and then out it will go with the rest of them.

“I’m not going to be piling my rubbish up on the street, like others have no choice to do. I feel sorry for the people who can’t do what I’m doing, who don’t have the space to leave them outside, or have containers.

“I’ve always had a good relationship with our binmen, and I feel sorry for them in all of this.”

Uncollected bins in Rhyl. Inset: One resident's overflowing bin (Image: Submitted)

At an “emergency meeting” last week, each “member area group” in Denbighshire was assigned its own “officer” to deal with issues and complaints about the county’s new waste collection system.

The council has previously apologised to the residents who did not have their bins collected when they should have been.

It introduced the new system because it believes it will help the council reach Welsh Government’s 70 per cent recycling target, set for all local authorities in Wales.

In addition, the council deems the new system better for the environment, because it should increase recycling rates and the quality of recyclable materials to enable them to be made into new products.

The council has said it will be cheaper to run than the previous service, and so provides better value for money to Denbighshire residents.