DOZENS of redundant bins have piled up in a Derby street after confusion over when they would be collected and taken to be recycled.
And the chaos at the junction of Camp Street and Kirk Street in Chester Green is not the only place this has happened.
Oakwood councillor Mick Barker says the same thing happened in his ward two weeks ago.
Both incidents appear to have been partly down to people with good intentions being misinformed as to when bins should go out.
In Camp Street, there are also people who say they had leaflets telling them the bins should be put out for collection, though this did not happen.
Camp Street resident Chris Jones, 30, said: "I had the leaflet through the door which told me to leave the bins out on Tuesday.
"I assumed the council had forgotten and put the bins away. But when I saw the big pile of bins in the road I added mine, thinking this was the council's new plan and that they were doing a collection after all."
Small blue bins that used to be used for recycling are being collected after they were replaced by larger blue bins.
And brown bins are being collected from people who do not want the new paid-for garden waste service which had previously been free.
The authority has always said it was collecting up about 10,000 bins over the "autumn and winter months".
Its website says: "We cannot give you an exact date of when this will happen.
"You will receive a leaflet through your door letting you know when you will need to put your unwanted bins out for collection, so please look out for this. Once you've received your leaflet, we aim to remove your bin(s) the following week, on your recycling collection day."
But the latest confusion has prompted some criticism of the council's work.
People were told what recyclables could go in the new large blue bins by stickers put out on each one.
Mr Barker said he thought the council could have told everyone when the redundant bins would be collected by putting stickers on bins some time ago. put similar labels on bins some time ago telling everyone what the final collection date was.
He added: "I think they've made policy on the hoof and it's confused everybody."
Mr Barker said the issue in Lychgate Close, Oakwood, happened after a woman's daughter, who lived close by but on a different collection round, told her she had received the leaflet.
The mother, in error, told others in the street that it was time to put the bins out.
Peggy Piggott, 42, of Camp Street, said she put her bins in the Chester Green pile having seen others do the same and heard that a woman who lived nearby had received her leaflet.
She said: "Now I want to see them picked up as soon as possible particularly because the wind could blow them into people's cars."
Paul Robinson, the city council's strategic director of neighbourhoods, said: "If people have not received the leaflet about the collection of their bins, they should take their bins in until they do so, as it makes clear which day theirs will be collected."
