Bexley named the worst borough for bin collections after it receives 38,000 complaints in a year

By Kiro Evans, Local Democracy Reporter 

Bexley has been revealed to be the worst place in London for failed bin collections – and it attracted the most complaints.

The South-east London borough has been named and shamed as the borough where recycling and waste pick-ups wind the most people up.

The council attracted over 38,000 complaints between 2020 and 2021.

It also topped the list for the number of times a bin collection was missed.

The data comes from Freedom of Information requests which were sent to councils across the UK by lettings management platform Mashroom.

Of the 271 councils who replied, Bexley topped not just the London list, but the UK list as well.

Their 38,808 bin collection complaints was far clear of Yorkshire’s Kirklees Council which was in second place with 29,029.

The next highest-ranking council in the capital was Camden with 11,263, more than 27,545 complaints behind Bexley.

It is likely last year’s ‘summer of stink’, when bin workers went on strike for seven weeks in Bexley, have contributed to the numbers.

Following Bexley and Camden, the only other London boroughs with complaints in the thousands are Ealing and Kensington and Chelsea.

Ealing received 1,279 while Kensington and Chelsea registered 1,180.

The fewest complaints came in the City of London, which had zero, and Wandsworth, with just 4.

The FOI revealed Bexley had a whopping 38,808 bin collections missed, matching the number of complaints they recieved.

The second place London council was Richmond upon Thames, with 30,471 bins forgotten.

Despite their high number of missed collections, Richmond attracted only seven complaints.

In the reverse of that, Kensington and Chelsea received 1,180 complaints even though it only missed 113 bins.

Bexley council was contacted for comment.