³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ

Thousands of household bin collections have been missed after new recycling boxes were introduced, prompting an apology from a council boss.

Denbighshire council has now put out extra crews on Saturday, with more shifts, and staff from other departments have been brought in to support collections.

Denbighshire chief executive Graham Boase said it had taken longer for refuse workers to collect waste from its new system which separately collects paper, plastic, metal, food cartons and glass.

He said more recyclables had been collected so refuse wagons had "filled up perhaps more than they were going to, which means they have to return to the depot to unload to go back out again".

"In rolling out our new system, we've encountered some issues and problems, and that has resulted in people having missed collections. For that I apologise," said Mr Boase.

He also responded to complaints from councillors that the head of recycling and the councillor responsible for the portfolio were both on holiday during the first week of the rollout, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Mr Boase said both had booked "longstanding leave" arranged long before the rollout occurred with the head of service attending a D-Day remembrance service.

"The vast majority have had their collection in accordance with the collection timetable but when you get into the 5% or 10% that haven't - and I don't know the exact figures, but let's use that as an example - 5% or 10% of 43,000, you are getting into large numbers of properties, aren't you?

"But we accept it is a sizable minority that runs into thousands of households that haven't had their waste collected," said Mr Boase.

The council said it had crews out on Saturday focussing on key areas which have been missed, with extra shifts so that they can stay out longer.

Staff from other departments were also being redeployed to help with tasks to support the front-line collection crews.

"The reason we've missed collections is some of the rounds have taken longer than we thought they were going to take," said Mr Boase.

"That is in part because of the extra recycling our residents have done.

"The wagons have filled up perhaps more than they were going to, which means they have to return to the depot to unload to go back out again."

Non-recyclable black bin collections are now every four weeks opposed to a former two-week system while a weighted hessian bag is used for cardboard.