Almost a quarter of all recycling and garden waste in the borough was left to rot in the streets during the height of the rubbish collection problems, it was revealed this week.

Councillor Barbara Reid, the lead member for environment and planning at Hounslow Council, told a borough council meeting on Wednesday that new collection contractor Sita failed to collect the rubbish in 21 per cent of streets in mid-March.

She said there had since been “significant improvement,” but last week 2.4 per cent of waste was still left uncollected.

She said: “Sita have put in additional resources and are dealing with staffing and supervision issues.

“They also have capacity issues at their depot and we have told them that sorting this in the short term and long term is a top priority.”

Councillor Ruth Cadbury, deputy leader of the Labour Group, proposed a motion that the council “regrets and apologises” for the failures and assures residents that they will be resolved by the end of May.

She said: “It has been a disaster, eight weeks into the system and there are still fundamental problems.”

Coun Reid said she had already apologised for the failures and admitted it was “appalling” that some residents had still not received their recycling containers.

When asked when the problems would be resolved, she said: “To be honest I don’t know, and it would be irresponsible for me to say it will all be sorted by the end of May, but that’s certainly my aim.”

  • What do you think? Post your comments below.