Councils should have been better prepared for Christmas rubbish, says AnyJunk

Huge mountains of rubbish are disfiguring many of Britain’s pavements after the Christmas holiday but according to AnyJunk – the UK largest on demand rubbish removal company –councils should have had contingency plans in place to deal with it.

Jason Mohr, the founder of AnyJunk said: “There is a spike in domestic refuse every Christmas holiday as people discard household goods that have been replaced with presents, packaging materials, and food waste.

“The bad weather was unavoidable but not exactly unimaginable for the time of year and contingency plans should have been in place to deal with the backlog.

“Why not undertake collections through the night to catch up and get a special dispensation to cover associated noise pollution? Or councils that are seriously behind could engage third party contractors like AnyJunk to provide the extra capacity? Delays seem more driven by cost concerns rather than operational challenges.”

The problems are at their worst in cities like Birmingham, which has been hit by industrial action by bin-men, and Exeter where residents have been told they will have to wait for a month for collections.
The situation has been exacerbated by the extra food waste created by Christmas and New Year festivities - including turkey carcasses - which are causing concern over vermin and health hazards.

A Local Government Association (LGA) spokesman said: ‘an extremely prolonged period of bad weather’ had caused disruption for up to three weeks in some areas.

However, Local Government Minister Bob Neill was critical of council planning.

“We need to think again about how we maintain these basic services over the holiday period,” he said.

“People do produce a lot of rubbish over Christmas, and it is disappointing that in some cases councils haven’t showed more initiative about how to ensure people still get the services they pay for.“