Millar told letsrecycle.com: “Denbighshire residents have had to put up with months of misery with their bin collections, after the council’s shambolic rollout of the new collection regime.
“Locals are making the effort to work with the new system by sorting their recycling for collection so it really is a kick in the teeth to see that sorted waste mixed up again upon collection.
“Many will rightly be left questioning what the point of switching to the new system was in the first place.”
Since 3 June 2024, Denbighshire county council has implemented a series of changes to its waste collection service. Changes included new Trolibocs containers which require the separation of material streams, weekly collections for recycling, and a change to four-weekly residual waste collections.
The Rhyl, Prestatyn and Abergele Journal has reported that over 15,000 complaints have been made since the changes were introduced.
This week in Senedd, Millar said that while the chamber has “quite rightly” celebrated Welsh recycling figures, there are concerns regarding “the very poorly handled” rollout of separate collections.
He continued that it is “a matter of great confusion” for his constituents that they are required to separate the waste – only for it to be “commingled back again” in the back of refuse trucks.
The MS suggested that the new collection system could be costing the council “an extra £50-60K a week”.
Millar added: “Clearly the Welsh government has the ultimate responsibility for making sure that local authorities do a good job. They’ve invested heavily into the scheme in Denbighshire.
“Can we have a written statement from the minister on what involvement the Welsh government is having with Denbighshire to support them in order to get this system to get this system right once and for all.”
The government is yet to respond to Millar’s request for a written statement.
Denbighshire county council statement
A spokesperson for Denbighshire county council issued a statement to letsrecycle.com: “We continue to closely monitor the rollout of the new waste and recycling collection service for residential properties in Denbighshire. Measures we have implemented have seen the difficulties ease as the new service becomes more embedded across the county.
“The council is currently finalising a paper on (and a revised business case for) the new waste service, and both will be presented to our Cabinet on 1 October. That paper will confirm the projected cost of the waste service in 2024/25, which includes any additional costs incurred to resolve issues that we’ve experienced with the new recycling service. It will also detail the projected cost of the waste service moving forward.
“In regard to commingled collections, these are only being used as a last resort when standard collections cannot be carried out. This is a practice that we will be phasing out.
“When this type of collection is necessary, recycling is kept separate from the food wherever possible, enabling the waste to still be recycled after the round is complete.”
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