The council’s chief executive explains why ‘thousands’ of bins have not been emptied following changes to recycling

Richard Evans, local democracy reporter

The chief executive of a council that introduced a new recycling system this month has admitted he “underestimated” the time bins and recycling rounds would take as “thousands” of collections were missed in the past two weeks.

Graham Boase, chief executive of Denbighshire Council, has now apologized to residents on behalf of the council and said the authority is doing everything it can to ensure bins are emptied.

Mr Boase denied Denbighshire had a rat problem and insisted the county’s new Trolibocs system was the right thing to do because the recycling program would lead to cost savings and fundraising.

He also defended complaints from councilors that Denbighshire’s head of recycling and the councilor responsible for the portfolio were both on holiday during the first week of the rollout.

The municipality introduced its new Trolibocs system on June 3, which collects paper, plastic, metal, food cartons and glass.

Denbighshire now expects residents to separate the items themselves.

The non-recyclable ‘black bin’ collections now take place every four weeks, as opposed to the old two-week system, while a weighted gunny bag is used for cardboard.

Issues

Mr Boase said: “The first thing I want to do is apologize to the residents of Denbighshire who missed the collections.

“While rolling out our new system we have encountered some issues and problems and this has resulted in people missing direct debits. For that I apologize. I understand the concerns and unrest caused by residents. At the same time, we take care of the employees as well as the managers, and we want to do it well. It is a sincere and heartfelt apology for the upset and concern we have caused by our failure to collect.

“We don’t have exact figures, but if we have 43,000 households to collect then the vast majority have had their collection in line with the collection schedule, but when you get to the 5% or 10% who have done so” t – and I don’t know the exact numbers, but let’s use that as an example – 5% or 10% of 43,000, you’re getting into large numbers of properties, right?

“So the majority has gone well, but we’ve had some issues with the minority. But we accept that it is a significant minority who are encountering thousands of households who have not had their waste collected.”

Rats

When asked if reports of rats had increased, Mr Boase said they had not.

“Absolutely, categorically, no, we don’t have a rat problem,” Mr Boase said.

“We now receive no more reports of rats than any other reports of periodic rats. We do not regret the decision to roll this out. This new system is exactly what we need to do.”

He added: “The problem with the new system is that – when you roll it out to 43,000 homes, in the diversity of rural areas such as in the south of the province, compared to some urban areas in the north – the reason we have collections missed and some rounds took longer than we thought.

“This is partly due to the extra recycling that our residents have done. So the wagons may be more filled than intended, which means they have to go back to the depot to unload and go out again.

“We probably underestimated the time it takes to do several rounds. There have been a few smaller issues, but this is the predominant problem. We don’t regret it. It’s the right thing to do. Separating our recycling materials will result in a much better product for us to sell, and we will sell it because it is a high-quality recycling material with value.”

Mr Boase thanked the recycling staff on site, who he said were doing a fantastic job, and was concerned that negative activity on social media was not impacting their morale.

Holidays

The chief executive also responded to criticism that the head of the recycling service and the cabinet member responsible for recycling, Cllr Barry Mellor, were both on holiday during the first week of the rollout.

Mr Boase explained that both the head of service and the cabinet member had been booked into ‘extended leave’ long before the rollout took place – with the head of service away to attend a D-Day commemoration service.

Ruthin councilor Huw Hilditch-Roberts said he was pleased the CEO had apologised, but claimed unemptied bins and uncollected recycling were affecting the mental health of Denbighshire residents.

“I am pleased that the chief executive has apologized for the huge problems that have occurred with the bins over the past two weeks,” said Cllr Roberts.

“I am still concerned that there are homes in Ruthin that have not had a collection for two weeks and I urge them to make this a priority. “I have every sympathy for the workers on site for the work they are doing in very difficult circumstances and I sincerely hope that they will be able to rectify the situation as quickly as possible.”

He added: “I have not been personally involved in the planning, but ultimately you can only measure by results, and we have emerged from a situation where all bins in Denbighshire were consistently emptied, and they are now have not been. That’s the proof we have before us.

“I urge the council to pull out all the stops because the mental health of some people who don’t have their rubbish collected affects them, and it’s really important that Denbighshire and the leadership team get this right. ”