Angus residents have rubbished the council’s new bin collection scheme following myriad teething problems during its roll out.
The new recycling service commenced in March with the changes ushered in to make it easier for people to recycle more materials at home and help divert waste from landfill.
Early reports from the authority suggested bin collections had gone smoothly in the main but many residents in Carnoustie and the surrounding areas have complained following two periods of missed collections.
A Barry homeowner said: “We have, once again, been let down by the council who have failed to collect our recycling bin on Friday.
“We’ve only had the new bins and collection policy in place for a couple of weeks but they have failed to collect this bin two weeks ago and again this week.
“The last time it was emptied on the Sunday, which also raises questions about guys on the lorry being paid overtime by Angus taxpayers.”
The new collection system was trialled in September 2012 and the council reported a 40% drop in the amount of general waste collected coupled with a boost in recycling rates from 18% to 55%.
The new scheme has seen the introduction of a new purple bin for general Iwaste, collected fortnightly and the grey bin switched to the receptacle for cardboard, paper, cans, plastics and glass, also collected fortnightly.
New indoor and outdoor caddies for food waste were introduced and are due to be collected weekly while the green garden waste bin stays with its fortnightly collection.
Bins containing the wrong recycling items are not emptied and an advice tag is left with the container, explaining why it has been left.
The council confirmed it encountered problems with collecting recycling bins in Wellbank at the end of March, due to bad weather, and experienced further problems in Letham, Carmyllie and Guthrie.
Homeowners from across Carnoustie have vented their frustrations online through community Facebook pages, with some claiming to have gone four weeks without bin collection.
The Barry resident added: “I find myself a tad irritated that the council has rolled out a new bin collection policy that they seem unable to deliver.
“Their advice is to take the bins in if they are not emptied fortunately we ignored this and had ours emptied on the Sunday so there will be folk out there who won’t have had their bins emptied at all the first time.”
A spokeswoman for Angus Council apologised for the missed collections and said the council was striving to resolve initial “teething problems”.
She said: “We would like thank residents for their participation in the roll-out of the new kerbside recycling service. However, we apologise to those residents who have not had their bins collected as expected as this is not the level of service which the council wishes to provide.
“The majority of households have had their bins collected as scheduled but where this hasn’t been achieved we assure residents that we are working to resolve some problems with the new routes.
“Where we have been unable to complete a collection, we have tried to collect the bins the following morning. One exception was in Carnoustie where we collected bins on the following Sunday.
“We would ask residents to bear with us as we work to resolve these teething problems.”
The council has also apologised to residents of Friockheim whose grey bins had not been emptied and also to Carnoustie residents whose food bins had been missed, indicating the problem was more widespread.