Over 87,000 bin collections missed in one month
LDRSOver 87,000 household waste and recycling bin collections were missed in a single month in Rotherham last year.
August saw a total of 87,705 missed collections in the town, making up more than half the total for 2025, according to figures released under the Freedom of Information Act.
Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council said there had been staffing pressures at the time, leading to garden waste collections being paused to focus on general waste and recycling.
Sam Barstow, council service director for street scene, said the authority had faced "a difficult few months" and "simply didn't deliver the reliable service residents rightly expect".
Staffing levels were part of the reason for the missed collections and were something "a lot of councils have struggled with", Barstow explained.
The council spent more than £814,000 on agency staff throughout 2025, with an average of 26 employed throughout the year.
'Better position'
In total, 155,858 collections were missed in 2025, compared with 6,554 in 2024, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Barstow said: "We apologised to everyone affected by the disruption to garden waste and offered a discount on this year's service, or a partial refund for those who chose not to renew."
He added that several changes, including actively recruiting new staff and examining schedules and bin routes, had since been made.
"Bin collections will always face challenges like bad weather or vehicle breakdowns, but we're confident we're in a better position now than we were last year," he said.
Despite the sharp rise in missed collections, the number of complaints remained fairly consistent.
A total of 20 complaints were recorded in August 2025, only one more than in the same month the previous year.
The council said residents were informed in advance of the service pause and many contacts had been handled as service requests rather than formal complaints.
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