Yahoo News Fed-up residents use private binmen after council introduces monthly rubbish collections
Angry residents in North Wales have been forced to hire private binmen after the local council cut rubbish collections to just once a month.
The families pay up to £450 a year – on top of their council taxes – because of the desperate situation.
Overflowing bins saw hundreds of households choose to pay an extra £38 a month just so their bins could be collected more often.
Collections have been reduced because of budget cuts to council services across Wales.
Residents claim they had no choice but to call in private refuse collectors.
Graham Jones, 48, from Llandudno, Wales, is one of more than 700 homeowners using private firms.
He pays for an additional fortnightly collection as he insists that his bins are filled to the brim way before their monthly collection – despite the family’s effort to recycle.
‘We are all being cheated, the public are just not getting the service that they pay their council tax for,’ he told the Daily Mail.
‘I’ve no option but to pay for a private bin collection. Although we recycle everything we can we produce too much waste to wait four weeks.’
He added: ‘It’s absolutely wrong, we are being swindled.’
Conwy in North Wales was the first council in England and Wales to make the change in September.
Councils are justifying the cuts by savings of £400,000 a year and insist that people should focus on recycling their waste to ensure more space.
Conwy council said recycling had risen and black bin waste has fallen under four-weekly collections.
The move was introduced after a trial, despite residents’ objections.
Residents said the trials had brought more rats, seagulls and flies.
However, the council said it could save £390,000 a year. The move affects some 11,000 homes in the region.
Andrew Wilkinson, the council’s head of neighbourhood services, said: ‘If people want to pay a private company so they don’t have to recycle, that’s up to them.
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‘To those filling their wheelie bins every fortnight or every week, we would ask – what’s in your bin and why don’t you recycle like everyone else?’
The councils are hoping to avoid fines of up to £600,000 a year from the Welsh government if they fail to hit 70 per cent recycling targets by 2025.
Rachael Owen, who lives with her partner Mark Edwards, 33, and their son Tommy, 2, in Rhos-on-Sea said she was fed up of her “smelly” black bin being emptied every three weeks.
She pays £432 a year for Binzilla to collect her waste each week.
She explains that she does recycle but some weeks the family have too much rubbish.
