A RESIDENT of Dyserth has told of his relief after he and his neighbours’ general waste was collected last weekend for the first time since May.

The resident, who lives on Bryn Y Felin but asked not to be named, said the waste should have been collected on June 20 and July 18, but was not on both dates.

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.

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.

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To try and catch up with the backlog of missed collections, the council has put on extra collection shifts on Saturdays – it was last Saturday (July 20) when Bryn Y Felin’s residents had their general waste collected.

The resident said: “Online complaints were ignored, the phone line just rang out, and the drop-in centre at the library was unable to do anything other than repeat residents’ complaints online.

“Bins were overflowing and seagulls were spreading rubbish down the street.

“We’d had all of the recycling and food waste collected, but all of the general waste bins were stuffed and overflowing, and seagulls were getting into them (prior to collection).

“We were all at our wit’s end. It got beyond where you could stamp rubbish down.”

Bryn Y Felin’s residents’ next general waste collection is due to be on August 16, meanwhile.

The resident added that, when it was collected on Saturday, he felt “relief, upon hearing the reversing bleep of a bin truck in our road, compared to the (previous) frustration and feeling of impotence when we realised we'd been forgotten again”.

He also remarked on “the friendly helpfulness of the binmen, compared to the unresponsive black hole of the council's overwhelmed 'system'”.

“We just hope that it will work for us from now on,” he added.

A spokesperson for Denbighshire County Council said: “The majority of recycling and residual waste collections have been completed as planned under the new waste and recycling service.

“We however accept that a number of residents didn’t receive the service planned and this has cause difficulties for them.

“The council is continuing to closely monitor the roll-out of the new service and is doing everything we can to make sure that all residential waste collections are made as planned.

“We expect that the difficulties will ease as temporary measures implemented take effect and the new service is embedded.”

“We would also again like to thank all residents for their efforts to ensure that their recycling is sorted correctly and placed in the appropriate containers.

“These efforts are continuing to greatly improve the quality of the recycling materials collected and this is really appreciated.”