By Raja Dass
Information gathered by Islington Council shows that 3,000 bags of rubbish were left uncollected between July and September last year.
This has led to many local residents feeling distressed and irate. Despite the reaction, the council insists that they are doing their best, and that the uncollected rubbish is a small issue in comparison to other duties they have to undertake.
Stacey Clarke, 32, who lives on Florence Street, Islington, said her bins weren’t emptied for the whole of the Christmas holiday period.
She said: “The bins were absolutely disgusting over the holidays. We ended up having to put a lot of the bags in our back garden, which worried me because of the rats and other things it’ll attract.
I’ve even seen foxes rummaging through the rubbish. Usually they’re too frightened to come so close.”
Ms Clarke continued, “Three collections have been missed and I have called the council three times but heard nothing back. I feel like you never know what’s going on anymore.”
Alexander Lindstedt, 21, who lives on Tollington Road, Islington, said: “Two weeks is just too long a time to leave bags of rubbish on the street.
It’s just rank! I have to leave some bags out for the week, and some mornings I leave my place, and the smell just slaps me.”
The angered members of the public have taken to Twitter to hound the council.
One said: “Fifth week in a row our recycling has not been collected. So much for ‘monitoring it’ and it ‘not happening again’ Please explain.”
A spokesperson for Enterprise Cleaning, who collects the rubbish for the borough of Islington, commented: “While it is true that some of our services rubbish collections are limited to once a fortnight in particular areas of Islington, this is down to the relationship we have with Islington council themselves.”
When asked about their increase in collections to businesses in Islington, Enterprise Cleaning said: “Local businesses have a Bin Contract which is an added expense on top of their normal business rate.”
Research conducted by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) indicates that a majority of the ten councils who switched to the fortnightly collection of rubbish, showed an increase in recycling over the past two years.
Just five of the ten councils applied for money to bring back weekly refuse rounds for all or some of their households, but more than a quarter of the successful bids are aiming to introduce or enhance food or organic waste collections.
The residents of Islington though, are hoping to gather enough support to take their case to the council and have their weekly refuse collections back. Islington Council however, has refused to respond.
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