A MAN from Meliden has started a petition calling for an inquiry into Denbighshire’s new waste collection system.

On June 3, Denbighshire County Council introduced changes to recycling and waste collections, including new containers and weekly collections for recyclable materials, and the scrapping of the blue wheelie bin.

From then, residents have been required to separate their “dry” recycling using a new three-tier “Trolibocs”.

There is also a free new weekly collection service for small electrical items, household batteries and textiles.

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But the council has so far issued multiple apologies for residents across the county not having their bins collected on time.

Jacob Riddle has since started a petition calling for an inquiry into the matter, which has so far garnered more than 230 signatures - www.change.org/p/introduction-of-the-new-recycling-scheme-in-denbighshire-a-call-for-an-inquiry

He said: “The scheme has cost £22million and was first proposed back in 2018. 

“This is ample enough time for the council to address the problems that residents are facing today and I can see no reason why residents are being left in the dark by the council, with waste being left to pile high. 

“I have spoken directly to the manufacturers of the new lorries - Terberg - and they tell me the lorries can handle in the region of four to five tonnes. 

“If correct, that is a vast reduction on the previous 28 tonne lorries we used to have and would account for many of the problems. 

“If those stats are accurate, it begs the question - why weren’t these potential issues flagged earlier? It took one phone call to gather that information. 

“These are the reasons why I’ve called for an inquiry into the new Trolibocs scheme - to ascertain what has gone wrong, why these issues weren’t identified earlier, and why waste is being left to pile high across the region.” 

In response to Mr Riddle’s petition, Denbighshire County Council made the following comments:

  • “Denbighshire has a mixed fleet of vehicles ranging from 13.5T to 3.5T in operating weight as the topography of the county requires smaller vehicles to access more rural roads.  This is no different than under the previous model.”
  • “Denbighshire staff have been fully trained to use a system that is in operation in Wales as well as English authorities and can be operated from both sides of the vehicle, thus always ensuring operative safety.  To say that staff have not been trained is false. WRAP Cymru have been our implementation partner and they have led on training delivery, giving full and proper training to all staff prior to go live. All training, H&S and SSoW requirements have been covered.”
  • “Wales is way ahead of England in terms of recycling. In 2022-23, their statistics were 43.4 per cent recycling, which was down from the previous year. Wales is second in the world, England is 11th. This evidences that Wales has a superior system than England and this has been achieved with most counties having already adopted the kerbside sort recycling.”
  • “Advice from WRAP Cymru is that the new system, albeit slightly behind expected norms for delivery, is in line with the experiences of other authorities that have adopted this system.”
  • “Denbighshire has been in regular dialogue with Conwy County Borough Council prior to and during go-live and our experience is very much akin to theirs when they rolled their system out over a decade ago.  We have been using their experience and the advice of WRAP Cymru to adapt where required.”
  • “Where required, we have brought in temporary support staff to assist with getting us to a business-as-usual status.  Any change of this size was likely to be somewhat disruptive, but we are managing this disruption proactively.”