Missed Cornwall bin collections calls top 1,000 a day
Householders in Cornwall have been flooding the local authority with more than 1,000 calls a day about missed rubbish collections.
More than 250,000 households have been affected by county-wide changes to collections after Cory Environmental Services took over services on 1 April.
One householder said she had not had any collections since the changeover.
The council said it was working with Cory to identify where the problems were occurring.
The authority said it had received 7,266 reports of missed collections between 10 and 16 April.
Sam Ellacott, 32, whose partner gave birth to twins on 4 April, said there had been one bin collection and no recycling collections at his Liskeard home since the start of the month.
He said he had contacted the council by phone on Wednesday 11 April after refuse was collected but recycled waste was left.
He said he was told "Friday at the latest" for the collection.
But there was no collection on Friday (13 April) and there have been no collections since.
He said: "Now I have three bin bags and all my recycling sitting out on my drive which has just been run over by my neighbour, causing a huge mess."
Louise Thorpe, 30, from Little Petherick in north Cornwall, said there had been no rubbish collections since 27 March and she now had 15 bags of rubbish, which were attracting rats.
"We just keep logging complaints but nothing has happened."
Liberal Democrats on the Conservative-Independent controlled council have called for an inquiry into the "waste shambles".
Leader Jeremy Rowe said: "There are many other important service contracts which will come up for renewal in the coming years and the council needs to handle them better than it has this one."
Cory said it had brought in extra vehicles and brought forward the recruitment of seasonal staff to tackle the backlog.
A council spokeswoman said: "As with any contract of this type, the council has measures in place to ensure standards and targets are achieved and the contract enables us to take remedial steps in the event of service failure or non-improvement."
Households can report missed collections on the council's website.