THE amount of large piles of rubbish dumped on the Old Barn Estate in Newport the week was not the result of the introduction of smaller bins, Newport City Council has said.

Photos taken by residents on Wednesday night showed heaps of rubbish piled on top of and next to bins outside the flats - with some claiming this was the result of the council introducing smaller waste bins earlier this year.

The council has said the mess left outside the block of flats was “unacceptable”, but has insisted the smaller bins are not to blame.

South Wales Argus:

Picture: Michael Enea

A spokesman for Newport City Council said: “Claims that smaller bins are to blame for this mess are untrue. These flats have large green communal bins rather than individual small bins, so Newport City Council can categorically say that the change to bin size across Newport is not to blame, as these properties have seen no change in their collection frequency.

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“Both waste and recycling sessions have also been carried out weekly across the city, notwithstanding the festive bank holidays. However, there is no excuse for dumping this amount of rubbish, especially as the Household Waste Recycling Centre was open on Boxing Day for the first time.”

Residents spoke of their frustrations on the St.Julians Matters Facebook Page. Sarah Murrell said: “The amount of bins is not sufficient to service the amount of flats using them.

"Those bins are used by all four blocks, consisting of six flats each - that’s 24 flats using six recycling bins."

She added: "The number of bins either needs to be doubled or they need to be emptied more than once a week or this will be a recurring issue.”

The rubbish shown in the images was removed at 8.30am on Thursday morning by waste enforcement officers, who will also be examining the items to see if any further action needs to be taken.

And the council questioned the lack of recycling shown in the images, saying: “A lot of the dumped items should have gone into recycling boxes or bags."

South Wales Argus:

Picture: Michael Enea

They also said that the work from its PINT (Pride in Newport) fly-tipping team has resulted in a reduction of incidents, adding: “The council would like to point out that figures released by Stats Wales in December 2019 highlighted that in Newport the number of reported incidents fell from 3,588 in 2017/18 to 2,697 in 2018/19.

“Whilst there has been a net reduction in fly-tipping overall, we would like to see further improvements in reducing the number of commercial scale fly-tipping in the city and would like to remind residents that they have a legal obligation to take all reasonable measures to ensure that their waste is disposed of properly.”