Hundreds of families forced to pay £450 a year for private binmen

FED-UP families have been forced to pay £450 a year for private binmen after their council cut collections to once a month.

Overflowing bins saw hundreds of households opt to pay around £38 a month just to keep vermin away as their waste piled up in Conwy, North Wales.

This is a result of cuts to councils in England and Wales who have reduced their rubbish collecting service to one every four weeks.

Graham Jones, 48, from Llandudno, Wales, is one of more than 700 homeowners using private firms.

He pays for an additional fortnightly collection as he insists that his bins are filled to the brim way before their monthly collection - despite the family's effort to recycle.

He told the Daily Mail: "We are all being cheated, the public are just not getting the service that they pay their council tax for.

"I've no option but to pay for a private bin collection.

"Although we recycle everything we can we produce too much waste to wait four weeks.

"It's absolutely wrong, we are being swindled."

Graham lives with his wife Helen, 46, daughter Hannah, 18, father-in-law John, 91 and mum Dorothy 78.

Conwy in North Wales was the first council in England and Wales to make the change in September, and locals are furious.

Councils are justifying the cuts by savings of £400,000 a year and insist that people should focus on recycling their waste to ensure more space.

Conwy council said recycling had risen and black bin waste has fallen under four-weekly collections.

Andrew Wilkinson, its head of neighbourhood services, said: 'If people want to pay a private company so they don't have to recycle, that's up to them.

"To those filling their wheelie bins every fortnight or every week, we would ask – what's in your bin and why don't you recycle like everyone else?"

The councils are hoping to avoid fines of up to £600,000 a year from the Welsh government if they fail to hit 70 per cent recycling targets by 2025.

Rachael Owen, who lives with her partner Mark Edwards, 33, and their son Tommy, 2, in Rhos-on-Sea said she was fed up of her "smelly" black bin being emptied every three weeks.

She pays £432 a year for Binzilla to collect her waste each week.

She explains that she does recycle but some weeks the family have too much rubbish.