DISGUSTING piles of litter are being dumped and scattered on country roads – and some of it is your recycling.

Over the past few weeks bin bags filled with household waste have been spotted dumped on the sides of rural roads, as disheartened residents reportedly drive into the countryside and dump their uncollected rubbish.

Now, after months of problems with the new recycling service, outraged residents are calling for urgent action after finding their carefully sorted recycling scattered along nearby country roads.

Outraged residents living in Tarvin and Dodleston have contacted The Chronicle after discovering lines of washed-out milk cartons, plastic packaging and drink bottles strewn across roadsides shortly after their bins were collected by May Gurney staff.

And reports have been flooding in that some of the mounting levels of roadside waste, which is rotting in hedges and trees, is caused by recycling escaping from open flaps on the sides of bin wagons as they race to complete their collections on time.

Peter Hodgson, who has lived in Tiverton with his wife Hilda for more than 20 years, said he was ‘appalled’ by the amount of rubbish strewn around their neighbourhood after bin collection time, as well as the ‘disgusting’ levels of litter along the Tarvin Bypass.

“It is just disgraceful, I have never known it in all the years we have lived here,” said Mr Hodgson, who said friends visiting him at his country home had called the rural area a ‘mess’.

“The levels of rubbish are just getting progressively worse. When they tip the bins in to the wagon they drive around with their flaps up and it all comes spilling out.

“Most of it is not takeaway wrappers it is what people are putting in their recycling bins. I cannot believe it is just people’s behaviour changing over night, it seems to have happened since the new service came in.”

Last week Andrew Archer, who lives just off the Welsh Road in Gorstella left his home to find piles of recyclable rubbish scattered metres down the road – moments after the bin men had left.

“It is disgusting,” said Mr Archer, who said he found milk cartons, empty beer cans and plastic wrappers within metres of his country home.

“People are making a real effort to sort their recycling and then finding it littering the countryside. It’s infuriating. We are trying to do our bit to save the environment and then it’s being thrown back in our faces.”

And similar reports have been flooding into our Facebook page, with city centre residents claiming other people’s bin bags are being abandoned on their streets, and their roads are left strewn with rubbish as litter blows from boxes and out of the sides of bin wagons.

WASTE collectors May Gurney have admitted residents’ recycling is spilling from bin wagons.

The Chronicle contacted the waste contractors, who apologised for the mess caused by their collections.

Contract manager Zak Shell said: “It has come to our attention that there have been occasions where our collection activities have resulted in spillage of recyclable material.

“Where this has occurred we offer our sincere apologies and can assure the residents that we are proactively working with and providing additional training to all crews to ensure our future operations leave the collection areas in an excellent clean and tidy condition.”

And Cheshire West and Chester Council said the roadside litter problem was being added to by ‘incorrect working practices’ in the Recycle First Service.