FESTERING bins are still causing a stink five weeks after the introduction of the kerbside recycling scheme.

But Vale Royal residents insist recycling is not the problem - it's the fortnightly collection of residual waste they want to see binned.

Numerous problems - from late collections to getting the wrong boxes and bins returned - have tested the patience of householders, but nothing quite so much as having to wait a fortnight to have their general household waste collected.

With summer almost here, residents from Frodsham and Helsby, to Tarporley and Delamere, and Northwich and Winsford fear their two-week-old rubbish will soon become a public health nuisance.

Now, residents are sending outline letters to the borough council's chief executive to express their dissatisfaction with the scheme and requesting 'a rethink'.

The letters, which leave space for people to list their complaints, are the idea of Frodsham resident Colin Heighton, who calls the fortnightly collection of residual waste 'a dis-grace'.

This week he said: 'They are going very quickly. I have been going round to people and they have wanted them for their friends, it's just snowballing. Everyone's distributing them. The quantity that must have gone out is unbelievable. I have no idea of the quantity of letters now.'

Mr Heighton and Frodsham Town Councillor Brian Lloyd have been leaving the letters at shops in the town, including Topshop newsagents on Langdale Way and Elliott's News Agency on Main Street.

Owner of Topshop, Bhupinder Waraich, said: 'About 200 have gone in 10 days. People see them on the counter and everybody's picking them up.'

Other shops have agreed to have letters, including Frodsham News on Eddisbury Square, the Co-op in Kingsley, and the One-Stop shop and Co-op in Helsby.

Another Frodsham resident, Nigel Tunstall, of Howey Lane, told how squirrels had ripped his rubbish bags open before it was collected after three weeks last Monday.

'We live up a bridal path which forms the start of the Sandstone trail,' he said. 'We have walkers congregating here on a Sunday morning. It's not great advertising for a tourist attraction when the place is strewn with rubbish.'

Other complaints about the scheme were reported at the last meeting of Helsby Parish Council.

Cllr George Randles said: 'Green bins currently in Rake Lane were collected on April 16. The next collection was not until May 7. Brown bins were emptied on the due date but we haven't had recycling. When you ring up the help lines the poor girls are inundated.'

The scheme, brought in to help Vale Royal meet government and European recycling targets, sees all properties receive a recycling box for cans, glass and textiles, and a bag for paper and magazines. All suitable properties also receive a brown bin for the collection of 'green garden waste and clean brown cardboard'. On one week the box, bag and brown bin will be emptied, and then the next week the green bin containing general household waste.

A resident of Clifton Crescent in Frodsham, who did not want to be named, said she only had six tins to put in her box this week.

'It's just ridiculous to expect people to take six items out of their bin and call it another week's collection,' she said. 'I wash everything out - there was a wine bottle, a sherry bottle, a beetroot jar and a sauce bottle, and then I got a box back which wasn't mine, and it was sticky and awash with ants because they had left it on the lawn outside.

'I just think a good idea would be for them to collect the recycling every four weeks and collect the general waste every week.'

She said she had not complained about the scheme to the borough council. 'I do honestly think there's a culture of 'well they will have it their way anyway' so I think people are saying 'what the heck, we will struggle along',' she said.

Martina Hulse, of Manor Road, Frodsham, who has a son and daughter aged five and two, said 'about 60 nappies' were going in her bin each fortnight. 'I washed it out yesterday because it stunk,' she added.

Teresa Warner, of Clifton Crescent, Frodsham, who also has two young children, said: 'This week I had my husband stand in the bin and I took some to my mother's bin. She's a pensioner and she still fills her bin. I was worried they wouldn't take my rubbish and I would be left with it.

'There are babies' nappies but most of what goes in the bin is plastic - the milk cartons, the juice bottles. When the summer comes and it's going to be left for two weeks in the summer that's when the trouble's going to start. One nappy has been put in the bin and it already smells and that's got to sit there for a fortnight.'

She said since the scheme started she had only put out the paper bag once. 'We have magazines and papers but I don't think every fortnight we have that much to go in,' she said.

Cllr Timothy Hill (Con, Tarporley and Oulton) said: 'I think concerns remain about the fortnightly residual waste collection. Introducing the separation of rubbish does not reduce the volume of rubbish but I think by and large people are prepared to separate waste. It's simply that there is too much residual waste to be collected on a fortnightly basis.

'I have had at least 50 complaints which, if you consider the borough as a whole, is a substantial number of people who are concerned about the new system.

'It's been said we can't afford to have a weekly collection, but I maintain if you do things in a different way it's possible to have a weekly collection with items that can be recycled. I think that is what the majority of people in the borough desperately want.'

What do you think about Vale Royal Borough Council's new initiative? Click here to have your say on our messageboard.