People in Denbighshire say bins haven't been collected as council rolls out biggest recycling change

• ITV Wales journalist Carole Green spoke to people in Denbighshire

People living in Denbighshire have called for a new recycling scheme to be scrapped, after their rubbish has been left uncollected.

Residents have shared pictures of streets littered with overflowing bins and boxes on social media.

Denbighshire County Council have begun a new 'Trolibocs' recycling system implemented just 10 days ago.

They say it's the biggest change to their recycling scheme ever.

Jason Evans from Dyserth has young twins.

He said "We were given a new nappy bin, that was given to us four weeks ago, it hasn't been collected since. That's overflowing, it's getting to the point where it's difficult for us to managed our own waste.

"It's getting unhygienic. I'm at my wits end to be honest."

Diane Fradsham is a keen recycler but says the new scheme isn't satisfactory.

"The trolibocs arent the biggest, we only have two people in our family, but if you have a family they're going to get full of stuff really quickly.

"It's ridiculous really.

"It's just not good enough when we're doing what they say to do."

One grievance is the amount of money being spent replacing a collection system that was performing well – Denbighshire was above average for Wales and second-best of the six councils in north Wales.

Its recycling rates were better than some councils that already use the system that Denbighshire implemented last week. Some residents have called for an immediate U-turn.

Nick Torpey lives in Meliden- his bins have been collected but he's unhappy with the work residents have to do to sort rubbish into different categories.

"The issue is the financing of it, and also all the work residents have to do - take our cardboard from yogurt pots.

Some residents complain of sending unanswered online forms to the council or spending up to an hour on the phone without response.

Since June 3, weekly collections of paper, plastic, metal, food cartons and glass have used stacked boxes on trolleys.

Non-recyclable waste has switched to four-weekly collections.

Residents across the county have labelled the new arrangements as an “utter shambles”.

However people in other parts of north Wales, where Trolibocs are used already, say their collections are now running smoothly after early teething problems.

The council said “unexpected issues” were inevitable in the early stages of the roll-out and it believes services will soon improve.Some parts of the county, such as Rhyl, are reported to be experiencing fewer collection problems.

Others, like Ruthin and Denbigh, have been left with rubbish on streets and near driveways.

Denbighshire County Council has apologised for shortcomings with the county's rubbish collections and said it expects this to be a short-term problem.A council spokesperson said: “We are still experiencing some teething problems with the roll-out of our new recycling service. Unfortunately, with any operational change of this scale, there will always be a number of unexpected issues at the outset.“We remain confident that this will settle down over time, and that services will return to the level of reliability that we are used to in Denbighshire. We know that this provides no consolation for anyone who has had a missed collection recently, but we do expect this to be a short-term issue, and to improve over the coming weeks. However, we would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by any missed collections.“We would like to assure residents that we are taking these issues very seriously, and we are doing everything we can to get the new service running as smoothly as possible, as soon as possible. We would like to thank all residents for their patience while our crews adapt to the new service.""We would also like to thank residents for their continued efforts with the new recycling system. It is already clear that the quality of recycling received from our collections has been very good, with very little contamination. We therefore remain confident that this new system will help us to improve our recycling rates and to reach the new statutory target to recycle 70% of household waste.”The council reiterated a request for residents to use an online form for missed collections. It said this was the “most effective and efficient way to communicate information to our operational team”.

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