Pensioner's bin left overflowing in month-long row with council

A wheelchair-bound grandmother yesterday had her bin emptied for the first time in a month, after a stand-off over where it was left.

Ellen Dennett, 67, is partially sighted, hard of hearing and has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and has using a wheelchair since she was 17 years old.

Unable to put the bins out herself, she relies on carers, who left them towards the bottom of the drive. But because this left them a few feet from the kerb, bin men refused to empty them. Rubbish, including incontinence pads, piled up for a month.

A friend of Mrs Dennett, Dennis Brown, said he'd already asked Liverpool Council to register her as disabled so that rubbish could be collected from the front door.

"As it was the bins were only a metre away from where they were supposed to be," he tells the Liverpool Echo.
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"When I spoke to the council, I was told to put the household rubbish in plastic bags in the back garden or ask the care workers to take the bins to a waste centre in their cars."

Mr Brown took some of the rubbish to a waste centre himself, but it soon started piling up again - to the extent that Mrs Bennett started worrying about rats.

Meanwhile, her son's girlfriend stopped bringing her grandchild to visit, concerned that there was nowhere to put used nappies.

Yesterday morning, though, the council caved in, and Mrs Bennett's bins were finally emptied - with the council promising to find a solution from now on.

Councils sometimes seem to move heaven and earth in order to avoid removing rubbish. Two years ago, for example, Castle Point Borough Council refused to take a bag of rubbish from pensioner George Whatley 's house because he'd placed it on top of a wheelie bin to deter foxes. This was a health and safety problem, they said.

And some have been accused of using waste collection rules as a cash cow, fining people who fail to comply.

However, earlier this month, the government banned councils from imposing heavy-handed penalties on families who break bin rules by mistake - for example, by putting bins out too early or placing the wrong thing in a recycling bin.

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