The shocking scene on a Welsh street plagued with litter problems

A councillor said he sympathises with residents who are fed up with waste issues plaguing parts of Cardiff. Cardiff Council ward member for Plasnewydd, Cllr Peter Wong, made the comment after a picture emerged showing an overflowing commercial waste bin on Penlline Street, a small street off City Road, and litter strewn on the pavement.

Commercial waste management company, Smiths, whose bin was pictured said it has now collected the waste and tidied the area. Cardiff Council said it is not responsible for collecting the waste pictured on the social media post, but added that an enforcement officer will visit City Road to see if any action needs to be taken.

Residents say litter and incorrectly disposed waste is a regular issue on City Road and other areas nearby like Albany Road and parts of Cathays. Cllr Wong said: "I completely sympathise with residents who are fed up with both people and businesses not putting out their waste properly." For more Cardiff news, sign up to our newsletter here.

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"We report these issues to the council waste teams when they are raised, and the waste teams are generally very good at reacting to these incidents, but businesses need to take responsibility for their creating situations like this. You can see from the picture that this particular business has overfilled their commercial bins, and this just isn’t acceptable."

From April, it became law for all businesses in Wales to sort their waste for recycling. On the Facebook post showing the bin on Penlline Street, many residents laid out their frustrations about recycling not being done properly, resulting in bin bags being torn open by seagulls.

However, one person who commented said fortnightly bin collections are a big challenge for businesses and some have rotas for checking contamination in bins and keeping them clean. Cllr Wong added: "New Welsh Government regulations mean that restaurant and cafes are now required to separate and recycle their food waste, and this should help in the long term, but we need to see businesses get into the habit of doing this.

"We welcome restaurants and cafes to Roath but they need to play their part in keeping the Roath community tidy." We approached Smiths about the picture on social media showing one of its bins overflowing.

A spokesperson said: "We were made aware of the bin yesterday and have acted quickly to rectify the situation. The bin has already been collected and the area tidied up as best we can." They added: "We act as the contractor for a third party broker at this site and the reason for this situation was that the customer has been put on stop for non-payment and therefore we were instructed not to empty the bin.

"Environmental Health were satisfied with this reasoning. Service levels in this area are very high, with this situation very much an anomaly. We have worked tirelessly with all our customers (particularly in Wales due to the new regulations), to ensure waste is collected promptly and recycling waste is disposed of correctly."

A Cardiff council spokesperson said: “The council competes against the private sector for commercial waste contracts, but as the picture in this story clearly shows, this commercial waste bin doesn’t belong to the council and we are not contracted to collect this waste. However, if commercial waste services are causing an issue, with waste being spilled on the highway, we do have powers to enforce. An enforcement officer will visit City Road to see if any action needs to be taken.”