Wheelie bin "chaos"

Letters sent out by Verdant at the beginning of the week announced they were not entitled to garden waste collection and should never have received bins in the first place.

Meanwhile Rother District Council claimed the bins were being taken only from homeowners not using them correctly.

A number of homeowners were advised to leave their green wheelie bins outside their property to be collected on Thursday (May 22).

They have been using the bins for seven months.

David Leigh contacted the Observer to say that some residents had received Verdant letters while others had not and knew nothing about the service being withdrawn.

"I am livid," he said.

"Absolutely livid. I think this is absolutely ridiculous. We have all played the game and we have all complied with their instructions, so why should we be discouraged by an organisation that is so confused - Rother District Council and Verdant?

"It's chaos. If they are going to take the bins away they are discouraging everyone from recycling, and we might as well go back to the old style."

A concerned daughter called the Observer claiming her disabled parents will find the change hard to cope with - they will have to carry rubbish rather than wheel it out for collection.

"They have been told they can put plastic bags out with rubbish in, as long as they are left open, because it is garden waste. But how it be, that you are given something and then it is taken away? My parents are disabled and old age pensioners...This is ridiculous."

Rother's Madeleine Gorman this week said: "Concerning the situation regarding retrieval of green bins from properties at Holliers Hill, I can confirm that Verdant will not be collecting green bins that are being used to contain green garden waste.

"Only green bins that are being used for residual waste will be retrieved.

"We sincerely apologise for the poor standard of communications about this matter and have established that residents received an early draft of a letter that did not make the position clear. We have arranged for another letter to be distributed to clarify matters."