The snow might be gone, but the problems it caused remain. Piles of rubbish built-up on the streets of several UK towns. A fertile breeding ground for rats.
A combination of the severe winter weather and the festive break led to a backlog of rubbish waiting to be collected in many parts of the country.
| In several towns, bins were last emptied on 21 December. And in some locations, residents were told it could be at least a month before their rubbish was collected. On 5 January, Clyde Loakes, vice chairman of the Local Government Association (LGA) Environment Board, said: “Residents can rest assured that waste collection is a priority. The lengthy bout of unusually severe weather in December disrupted a number of bin routes. As a result some collections had to be missed for safety reasons and made up later. “The vast majority of councils have caught up with the backlog and are now offering a normal service. Even in those councils still experiencing difficulty disruption is confined to small areas where collection has been particularly challenging. They are making up for missed collections by extending shifts, redeploying workers onto dustcarts and working weekends and public holidays. Areas which seem to have been particularly badly hit are Exeter, Birmingham, Milton Keynes, Weston-super-Mare, Poole, St Helens and the Wirral. In Birmingham, the situation was made worse by industrial action, which led to binmen walking out on 20 December in a pay dispute and subsequently working to rule. As all pest controllers will know, piles of rubbish are fertile breeding grounds for rats, and sacks once attacked by urban foxes can cause a real litter dispersal problem. |
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Not just in the UK Click here to read the BBC report and watch the report filed by BBC’s Mark Worthington in Birmingham. Click here to review the situation in New York. |
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