Denbighshire County Council apologises after binman threw batteries in resident's hedge

  • Adam Wroz sent a complaint to Denbighshire County Council regarding the waste service.

Denbighshire County Council has apologised after one of the council's waste workers threw batteries into a resident's hedge.

In September, Adam Wroz from Llangollen put the batteries in an appropriate recycling box to be collected by the council.

However, Mr Wroz discovered the batteries in a hedge in his garden.

CCTV footage appears to show a binman throwing the batteries into the hedge rather than collecting them with the other recycling items.

According to Mr Wroz, it is "not good enough" and the situation has made him "very angry".

“I was tidying up that lawn and, as I was strimming it, I found some batteries just on the edge of that fence. As I start picking them up, I see there’s more and more of them on the other side of the fence, and it took me a minute or so and I realised they’re my own batteries that I put in the recycling bin.”

According to a local councillor, several areas in the county have seen waste build up due to the council's failures to collect.

"Unacceptable"

Denbighshire County Council has apologised for the incident after Adam sent a complaint with the video evidence to the council.

The council added that the incident was "unacceptable and this matter will be thoroughly investigated to ensure the correct outcome."

But Mr Wroz is not the only one who has contacted Denbighshire County Council with concerns and complaints about their recycling system.

In June the council introduced a new waste system which has cost £22 million. The system requires county residents to separate their recycling waste into different boxes or bags.

But since the service was introduced, Denbighshire County Council has received over 500 formal complaints and 12,000 reports about uncollected bins.

ITV Cymru Wales' current affairs programme, Y Byd ar Bedwar, has also seen evidence of food being commingled with recyclable items which means the items cannot then be recycled.

In an interview, Tony Ward, Denbighshire County Council's Corporate Director of Economy and Environment admitted that it is not possible to recycle any items that have been mixed with food.

He said: “What we saw in the first few weeks, we had large areas of the county who were getting missed collections.

"Some had missed collections, week after week, there was a build up of waste on the streets. We had to respond to them, we can't just leave waste out on the streets.

"We had a choice between collecting the waste in a commingled way or not collecting it at all. We thought the right thing to do was to collect the waste.

Merfyn Parry has been a councilor in Llandyrnog Ward since 2012.

According to Merfyn Parry who has been a councillor in Denbighshire for over a decade, some are still waiting for their bins to be collected since May.

Mr Parry has received hundreds of complaints about the waste service over the past few months.

"I've had more complaints about this system than anything I've had since I've been on the council since 2012," said Mr Parry.

“The rubbish is just building up. I think everyone has a responsibility to do this but after they have gone to the effort to change the system we expect the county to also make the effort to be able to collect the waste.”

The council has invested an additional £1.3 million to try to solve some of the problems that have occurred. On Monday changes to the county collection rounds will begin in order to try to improve the effectiveness of the system.

Mr Ward added: “Some people have been having inconsistent service for some people it's been worse than others and for some people it’s been better than others some people have never had a missed collection.

“I would say that this is the right service, and is a better service than before. I acknowledge that some people have had an inconsistent service. We've now got plans in place to rectify issues that we've seen on a permanent basis, with the additional resources that we've chosen to put in.”

  • Y Byd ar Bedwar will be available to watch at 20:00, 4th November on S4C, S4C Clic and BBC iPlayer.

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