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'I've found tents & a mahogany wall clock in bins'

Phil ShepkaCambridgeshire political reporter
News imageBBC Chris Lively looking into camera. He has short hair and is wearing an orange council jumper, and yellow gloves. He is standing in between two bins, which he is holding, and in front of the back of a bin lorry.BBC
Chris Lively has worked for Cambridge City Council for more than two decades

A city centre refuse collector said he has seen "weird and wonderful things" in bins, including a mahogany wall clock.

Chris Lively, 64, has worked for Cambridge City Council for more than two decades and collects public bins in a place that has more than 1,000 litter bins, 562 recycling bins and 242 dog bins.

He said his job is a "fair bit of work", and has seen things such as tents and backpacks in bins, adding: "It defeats me how they got [the wall clock] in there".

Asked if he fancied taking the clock home, he said: "No, no, not with the amount of detritus that was on it."

He said some of the challenges they faced included "cyclists locking their bikes to the bins so we can't actually get to them to open them".

He continued: "Obviously, the weather doesn't help, and it hasn't this year. Other than that, people tend to leave us alone, and we just crack on with what we do."

News imageMartin Smart looking into camera next to a green park. He has short hair, dark rounded glasses and is wearing a navy jumper.
Martin Smart asked residents to consider taking their rubbish home with them

Martin Smart, the Labour city council cabinet member with responsibility for public bins, said to help organise crews, the authority had "got these sort of fancy sensors" on bins.

"They sense when the bin is full up or getting fuller, so the idea is to organise our collection rounds so they're more efficient, so that we're not going to a bin with a member of staff to empty it when it's not got any waste in," he said.

"We want to be coming to bins when they're coming up to fall, ideally, not totally empty because that'll be wasting staff time, residents' taxes... trying to make a good service, do the job properly."

Smart also said if there are things in recycling bins that should not be, "that could end up going to landfill and that's part of the problem, if it's corrupted".

He asked residents and visitors to "at least consider taking their waste home with them, that's the best thing to do because you can recycle it far more easily at home in your domestic waste bins, at home, and obviously put your recycling into your blue bin".

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