Putting the bins out is rarely anyone’s favourite chore. But residents in Denbighshire face an especially complicated task, with some households now expected to separate their rubbish into as many as 12 different containers.
Denbighshire County Council is testing the collection of soft plastics, including crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and ready-meal lids, across approximately 4,500 homes.
Residents already sort their waste into up to 11 containers under controversial recycling changes introduced in 2024 as part of a £22million overhaul.
The three-month soft plastics trial brings the total to 12, leading critics to accuse the council of turning residents into ‘unpaid binmen’.
Councils across Wales are asking households to separate increasing amounts of waste as they try to meet targets set by devolved ministers. The Welsh Government plans to introduce kerbside soft plastic recycling next year, despite concerns about whether the system can work effectively.
In England, the introduction of soft plastic collections has been delayed from 2027 until 2030 after councils warned they would not be ready. Findings from the three-year FlexCollect trial also cautioned that the UK does not currently have enough capacity to recycle all the material collected.
Council leaders insist no decision has yet been taken on making the Denbighshire scheme permanent. However, residents say the existing recycling arrangements are already difficult enough to manage.
‘It’s absolutely ridiculous the amount of bins we have,’ Denbighshire resident John Jacob said.
Residents of Denbighshire are being asked to recycle plastic bags at home – having already been charged with sorting rubbish into various tubs and bags (pictured)
‘And if you look at the flats, they have nowhere to put all their bins – so they’re stacked up outside. It makes the streetscene look terrible. All you see is bins.’
For the past two years, Denbighshire households have had to sort their own rubbish into a collection of boxes, bags and caddies. The change followed the removal of the single recycling bin, whose contents were previously separated and sorted by the council.
Residents now place paper, metal, plastic and glass into colour-coded, stackable boxes called Trolibocs, which can be topped with a pink box for batteries. Small electricals can be left on top for collection.
Food waste is placed in a silver caddy in the kitchen before being transferred to a larger orange container outside.
The cardboard recycling system has caused some of the strongest complaints. Cardboard must be packed into a woven blue sack that residents say can fall apart within months. One frustrated local described it on social media as ‘a chocolate teapot’.
Once the sack starts to break down, residents say it is inevitable that it will need replacing. A new one costs £12.50 and can take up to four weeks to arrive. The council says it is reviewing the policy.
Residents can also request black and purple caddies for sanitary products, including nappies and incontinence pads. Other options include a garden waste service costing between £47 and £77 a year, as well as clothing collections carried out on the council’s behalf by a third party.
Households that do not follow the recycling system face limited alternatives. General waste wheelie bins are collected just once every four weeks, compared with once a fortnight previously.
Denbighshire resident Linda Muraca wrote on social media: ‘Putting your bins out has become a full-time job and especially in the fourth week when they all go out.
‘You should see the state of our roads once the refuse collectors have been. Rubbish is often all over the place.’
Denbighshire’s latest soft plastics trial comes after a troubled initial rollout of the wider recycling changes. Council leaders were forced to spend millions on additional lorries and staff after missed collections caused widespread disruption.
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The Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition that oversaw its rollout collapsed in September and the authority is now run by an independent with support from the Conservatives.
But Labour councillors are nevertheless sticking to their environmental guns after rolling out the rehash two years ago: one described those who refused to do their part as ‘lazy, lazy, lazy’.
They said: ‘They are lazy and they cannot be bothered. They probably don’t want to look after the environment and the climate change and blah, blah, blah, alright? They are not thinking about their children, they are not thinking about the place they live in.
‘I mean, good grief, we had a huge hot summer this year and that’s all to do with climate change, running out of water and whatever. All these things are contributing to the climate change. That is why we need to be recycling far more.’
The unnamed councillor added that they ‘recycle everything’, telling The Times: ‘We want to reduce (waste) and the Welsh government wants to reduce it. Denbighshire has been leading the way.’
Three of the bins Denbighshire residents have to contend with: the silver caddy and orange caddy are for food waste, while the blue general waste bin is collected once every four weeks
Fly-tipping in Denbighshire is at its highest level in 15 years: according to official statistics, the number of reported incidents rose 230 per cent between 2024 and 2025, from 1,121 to 3,699.
The council says this is because it changed to a new reporting system that allows it to record more incidents. But reports also rose 46 per cent between 2023 and 2024 before the new system was introduced.
It insists there is ‘no evidence of a causal link’ between the expanding number of ways people sort rubbish and incidences of fly-tipping.
But while Welsh ministers push locals into ever-more-elaborate ways of sorting their rubbish, the postcode lottery of bin collections finally came to an end in England earlier this year with the introduction of ‘common-sense’ rules on bins.
Residents of English councils now need only sort rubbish into four containers: general waste; food waste; paper and card; and glass, metal and plastic.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance, a frequent critic of bin bonanzas, has called on Denbighshire county council, and Wales at large, to follow suit in simplifying bin day.
Grassroots development manager Benjamin Elks said: ‘Welsh households are sick to the back teeth of being treated like unpaid binmen by overzealous council bosses.
‘The ongoing fiasco in Denbighshire exposes the sheer madness of an over-complicated, multi-bin regime that leaves residents wading through sorting nightmares while local services grind to a halt.
‘Welsh ministers must scrap this administrative circus, and bring in the simpler collection rules being rolled out across England to give long-suffering Welsh taxpayers their sanity back.’
A Denbighshire County Council spokesperson told the Daily Mail the soft plastics trial had been met with a ‘positive response’ and ‘good uptake’, with 2,700 bags collected from the 4,500 homes in the first week of the trial.
Most residents, they said, put out ‘three containers a week’ for recycling – the three-part Trolibocs as well as their food caddy and cardboard bag – while stressing that the hygiene, garden and clothes bins are optional.
The spokesperson added: ‘Denbighshire is proud to be working alongside residents to achieve some of the highest recycling rates in the UK.
‘The soft plastics trial builds on the established recycling service and is helping the council prepare for forthcoming Welsh Government changes to recycling requirements that will apply to all local authorities in Wales.
‘We recognise that any change to collection services can take time to adapt to, and we will continue to work with residents to ensure the service remains effective, practical and easy to use.’