Bin men accused of throwing batteries in resident’s hedge

Richard Evans – Local Democracy Reporter

A councillor says there is “video evidence” of council binmen throwing recyclable batteries in resident’s hedges.

The claim was made during an exchange on Denbighshire Council’s much-maligned recycling scheme roll out at a meeting in Ruthin this week.

At the meeting, the Independent Party grouping tabled a motion to remove council leader councillor Jason McLellan and his eight cabinet members. But the vote was lost 25-17.

Independent leader Cllr Huw Hilditch-Roberts raised the issue of the council being placed in special measures before councillor after councillor took to the floor to criticise the council’s handling of the roll-out.

Llangollen independent councillor Karen Edwards slammed the cabinet accusing it of incompetence and hollow apologies before making the claim about council recycling staff.

She said: “Today I can inform members that I, along with the CEO and the corporate director, received video evidence from my ward of operatives simply dumping segregated batteries in a resident’s hedge, which has happened in the last fortnight. Recently we have also seen video footage doing the rounds on social media platforms of operatives co-mingling segregated waste while standing on the top of a cab roof throwing it into a caged vehicle.

“There have also been other reports of other health and safety issues and all this taking place despite officers telling us that extensive training had been undertaken. Over the weekend residents, who I have helped several times already, have come to me again advising of no collections in the past fortnight.”

Video

After the meeting a council spokeswoman said: “We are aware of a video circulating on social media and are conducting a thorough investigation into the matter.

“There are some days where a small number of properties, especially those who have suffered from repeated missed collection, are still receiving a co-mingled collection. This is done using a cage vehicle and tipped off at another DCC waste transfer station where the co-mingled waste is kept separate to the food wherever possible and then the co-mingled recycling is sent to a processor for separation and recycling, as would have happened under the previous collection model.

“There is a desire to stop all co-mingled collections but when there is no other option to get the waste off the street, we occasionally do still have to collect comingled recycling. To clarify, co-mingled collections are kept separately from any food or residual waste and the material is sent for processing as recycling.”

At the meeting Cllr Bobby Feeley voted for the cabinet’s removal because of the “unprecedented” situation. Cllr Terry Mendies hit out at the “bin fiasco, the chaos, the shambles, and can I add incompetence to those adjectives…”.

Cllr Justine Evans said she’d “never seen public dissatisfaction with the local authority at the level it currently is in Rhyl.” Cllr Andrea Tomlin said: “My residents feel that enough is enough.”

Council leader Cllr Jason McLellan said he had manned-up and again apologised to residents, promising a scrutiny process to look at the matter. “I’ve said before this happened on my watch. I’ll take responsibility that this has happened,” said Cllr McLellan.

“We’ve been working flat out to change this. We’ve turned a corner. Things are getting better – 232 (missed collections) out of 46,000 (households) – it’s not acceptable for those 232; let’s be clear on that, but that’s the perspective, and I think we’ve turned a corner.”

With the additional backing of Green Party members, a unanimous Plaid Cymru vote ensured the council’s Labour leader and his Labour/Plaid cabinet remained safe at yesterday’s council meeting.