This Is Cheshire

Heard about the binmen who didn’t cross road?

From the archive, first published Thursday 3rd Jan 2008.

BINMEN collected rubbish from homes on one side of a road but not the other.

Keen recycler Peter Ridgeway was left down in the dumps when his rubbish in Rushton Drive was left for two days.

Neighbours opposite had their rubbish collected on time.

"It only takes one drunken idiot to come along and the rubbish will be thrown all over the road," he said.

"It was collected on one side of the road but not the other. A lot of people couldn't wait any longer and took the bins back in so it wouldn't have got collected at all."

Mr Ridgeway put his waste out at 7.30am on collection day, but it still had not been collected two days later.

This is the second recyclables collection under Congleton Borough Council's kerbside collection scheme.

At the first collection binmen were left running a day behind schedule when more people took part than anticipated.

This time the council blamed the backlog of collections on two broken down refuse trucks and is asking the public to be patient during the initial teething problems. Alan Longshaw, waste and engineering manager at the borough council, said: "Two vehicles broke down on Wednesday and they were both the vehicles that we brought in to deal with the extra capacity.

"The contractors are still refining collection methods and these things are not done overnight, but we do apologise for the inconvenience."

Mr Ridgeway added: "I'm a big believer in recycling and recycle as much as I can, but I don't have a lot of patience with this kind of thing. I could quite easily empty it into my wheelie bin and then it will go to landfill.

"All I'm asking is for my rubbish to be emptied on time."