Residents fear more rats if bin collections reduced

Residents have said they fear the rat population in Ipswich could increase if black bin collections are reduced to once every three weeks.

Councils across Suffolk are setting out major changes to the way they collect general waste and recyclable rubbish as part of the government’s Simpler Recycling Scheme.

East Suffolk Council, for example, is now looking to only collect black bins filled with general household rubbish once every three weeks, as opposed to every two.

Residents have now raised concerns Ipswich Borough Council could also adopt the "absolutely ridiculous" new approach, a position the authority said it was not seeking to implement "at this point".

Stella Goutremout, 72, said she believed waste could also be fly-tipped before refuse collectors had a chance to pick it up from households.

She said: "Going from weekly to fortnightly was a lot for people to take but every three weeks would just be ridiculous. It’s wrong for hygiene reasons.

"In the summertime you can walk past and see maggots hanging down like bunches of grapes where the bins are just overflowing."

The changes made by East Suffolk Council are also expected to be adopted in a similar way by Babergh, Mid and West Suffolk district councils.

Under the new Simpler Recycling Scheme, designed to boost recycling rates by adopting a "common sense" approach, glass in Ipswich could also soon be collected.

Mark Green, 45, said he would welcome the change, but believed only collecting general rubbish every three weeks would be wrong.

"I share a bin with my neighbour and it is jam-packed after two weeks," he added.

“After three weeks the rubbish would be on the ground and it’s going to cause rats and all these creatures and there will be a lot of smell.

"I think [it would be] absolutely ridiculous."

Robert Dawson, 66, said: "Our bins are constantly overflowing and we are having to store the rubbish in the hallways.

"They stink as it is so imagine what it would be like if you have to wait three weeks for it to be collected - it just gets beyond the joke.

"They keep charging us more and more but we get less and less. They are keeping the money but they are not providing the services."

In a statement, Ipswich Borough Council said it was "not proposing to increase the number of bins for dry recycling, or to move to three weekly collections for residual waste at this point".

It added that the urban nature of the borough, with much terraced housing, would make introducing additional bins or containers difficult for residents.

"Therefore, at this stage, we are looking at how we can comply with the requirements of the Environment Act and increase recycling rates without implementing changes that would be difficult for our residents," it said.

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