Prestatyn residents’ food waste not collected for four weeks

Those living on Tywyn Ganol last had their orange food bins emptied on May 27, according to one resident, Frances Eccles.

Since then, she said, collections have been missed on three occasions, with the next one due to take place on June 27.

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.

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Since then, some of the county’s residents have been required to separate their “dry” recycling using a new three-tier “Trolibocs”.

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

Tywyn Ganol’s residents have not been given a Trolibocs each, and have instead retained their blue wheelie bins for recycling, black bins for general waste, green bins for garden waste, and small orange bins for food.

Frances Eccles with the orange food bins (Image: Newsquest)

Frances said the other bins have been collected, but, to her and her neighbours’ dismay, not the orange food bins.

She said: “Our food bins will not have been emptied for four week this Thursday.

“They’re covered with flies now – then, the maggots will come. The seagulls are already trying to open the lids and are making a mess, but we can’t get anything done about it.

“We don’t want to live in a tip here, with rats running round. We all do our bit to keep it as nice as possible, but we’re not getting the support we deserve.

“Why they haven’t collected our food bins since then, we don’t know. They’ve picked up our other waste. We had no problems until now.”

Frances said that, should her food waste not be collected on Thursday, she will place the contents of her orange bin in to her black bin.

This, she said, would feel like a necessary evil.

She added: “We object to putting food waste in our black bins, because they smell enough as it is, but that’s what we’re going to have to do.

“If they don’t come this Thursday, I’m going to empty all of my food waste into a bin bag, which is going into my black bin. I’d really hate to do that, but what can we do?”

Rosemarie Bower, a fellow resident of Tywyn Ganol, said she has tried contacting the council on numerous occasions about food waste not being collected, but to no avail.

She said: “We’ve had the rubbish collected, but not the food bins, which should be a priority over things like cardboard and glass.

“Since the new collection system came in, we’ve not seen one food lorry come down to move our food bins.

Rosemarie Bower (Image: Newsquest)

“There are 16 flats here. Can you imagine what it’s going to be like (if they continue to not be collected)?

“It’s not our job to do the binmen’s work.”

Sonya Williams, also of Tywyn Ganol, added that her green bin is also “full to the top” of garden waste.

She said: “There are flies around the bins now, and that could soon turn into maggots. It’s just ridiculous, and horrible.

“We’d just like things to go back to how they were.”

John Hardy, another neighbour, added that he feels as if residents are “doing the council’s jobs for them”.

He added: “The black bins will fill up, and if the lids are open (because of them overflowing), they sometimes don’t take them.”

A Denbighshire County Council spokesperson said: "We again apologise to any households affected by missed collections.

"We understand that this is very inconvenient and upsetting for residents, but we are doing everything we can to catch up.

"The number of missed collections has fluctuated daily depending on the areas that we are collecting.

"We are continuing to closely monitor this situation every day and expect that temporary measures we have put in place will resolve these issues."