Hull woman's rubbish cleared after shocking six months' delay

A Hull woman has finally had her recycling bin emptied, after months of pleading with the council.

Katie Curtis, who lives with her five-year-old son, said the rubbish had been piling up for six months. When she called Hull City Council, she says, she was fobbed off.

"Our blue bins haven't been collected for six months and there is so much rubbish, my son cannot play in the back yard," she told the Hull Daily Mail.

"As a result, I cannot recycle anything and my black bin is always overflowing. It isn't just me that's affected but also my neighbour. We just seem to have been forgotten about."

After Ms Curtis contacted the paper, the council first claimed that it hadn't received any complaints - but then realised that its computer system had failed to log her reports as it should. It's now apologised, and promised to clear the rubbish immediately.

"I feel vindicated now the council has admitted it was at fault. There will now be a bulk collection to clear the backlog today," says Ms Curtis. "It is a relief, and now my son will be able to play in the back yard once more."

Being missed out by the binmen has become far more of a problem since councils started cutting down on collections. Only 6% of councils now empty bins every week, and that proportion's only expected to fall since government funding was cut late last year.

Fife recently became the first council in Great Britain to cut back its general waste collection to once a month - although it's increasing the number of recycling collections to compensate.

However, the British Pest Control Association (BPCA) has pointed out that in an area where bins are collected every three weeks or less, it only takes one missed collection for bins to be left untouched for long enough for vermin to breed.

"A huge infestation could become established in that time, and the problem is that once those bins are eventually taken away, the pests will look for food and shelter elsewhere and that's likely to be inside the nearest home," says chief executive Simon Forrester.