Sutton Council has today apologised after rubbish was left to fester in thousands of bins during the first week of a new collection scheme.

Residents endured a chaotic first week to the new service after waste management company Veolia changed from weekly to mainly fortnightly service on Saturday, April 1.

Read more: Controversial new bin collection wheeled out across Sutton

The closed-lid bin policy meant homes were set to be given five bins of varying sizes, which Veolia said would lead to a more “recycling-led service”.

But hundreds of householders contacted the Sutton Guardian to complain that their bins had not been collected or had not been delivered.

Annette Reynolds said: “We were supposed to have new bins delivered by last Sunday, but they did not turn up. Our collection day is a Thursday and this week both bins should have been collected. Our green bin was emptied but the brown bin was not and it is still sitting out there waiting to be emptied.

“I reported by email that we had been missed and was sent a reply saying my report had been passed on. We are still waiting for them to be collected. When are these people going to get their act together and do the job they are getting paid for?”

Diana Worrall, from North Cheam, complained the green recycling boxes were filled within a week.

She said: “The green recycling box is woefully small and insufficient for most peoples’ recycling needs, I filled ours in a week. It is not convenient for moving around either, they should have given us another larger green wheelie bin.”

Furious residents also attempted to lodge their complaints with the council only to find the call centre automatically rejected their calls or kept them on hold.

Sutton Council said they were aware householders could not get through and apologised for the missed deliveries.

A statement on the council's website read: “Our contact centre is currently experiencing a very high number of calls. As a result your call may automatically be rejected while we speak to other residents.

“Following advice from Veolia we will upload clear instructions covering what to do with each bin whether it was due for collection last week or this week.

“We are sorry for the continued disruption to the bin collection service and are working with Veolia to get the service up and running as smoothly as possible.”

Read more: Tree knocked down by bin lorry on The Causeway same day as queue ‘carnage’ in Sutton for recycling bins

Read more: 'Carnage' in Sutton as around 1,500 queue for recycling bins outside B&Q​

The council’s comments were made following a muddled weekend where about 1,500 people queued up to two hours to collect new recycling bins from a lorry in Sutton Court Road’s B&Q car park on Saturday, April 8.

A bin lorry also knocked over a tree in The Causeway in Carshalton the same day.

Councillor Tim Crowley, the leader of the Conservative opposition at Sutton Council said: “I have been a councillor for 11 years and I have never seen such a cockup. Many people were in favour of this new recycling scheme, but said the bins were not large enough. Unfortunately but the council did not consult residents about the bins.

“If the council had, it would have known they would need larger bins. We think that a larger wheelie bin needs to be used for cans and bottles and we also want residual waste to be collected weekly, but I feel the council will hold firm against that.”

Councillor Manuel Abellan, Vice Chair of the Environment and Neighbourhood Committee at Sutton Council said: “We apologise unreservedly for the issues affecting the introduction of our new rubbish and recycling service.

"The standard of service has not been up to the quality that residents have rightly come to expect. Residents should have confidence their bin collections are taken on the correct date, and they are given the containers they need to recycle.

"We’ve organised extra crews and collections with Veolia to get the borough ready for this week’s collections.

“On Saturday Veolia had thousands of green boxes and a plan in place to restock as needed. The huge demand caught them off guard. It is unacceptable that people had to queue for so long. I thank residents for bearing with us while the new arrangements bed in."

To access online forms to report missed deliveries, collections and to order extra recycling bozes click here.