A bin too far: The town where residents now have to sort recycling into 12 bins... and get called 'lazy' for complaining

Rubbish day is hassle enough at the best of times - but spare a thought for the people of Denbighshire, who have to figure out how to sort their waste into up to 12 bins.Denbighshire County Council is trialling the recycling of soft plastics such as crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and ready meal tops with some 4,500 homes.Residents already have to sort their waste into up to 11 containers following a contentious and dramatic £22million overhaul of the recycling rules in 2024.But the three-month soft plastics trial takes that to a round dozen - prompting critics to accuse the council of treating its residents as 'unpaid binmen'.Authorities across Wales are pushing residents to sort more and more rubbish to meet the demands of devolved ministers, who plan to roll out soft plastic recycling at the kerbside next year despite warnings over its feasibility.In England, soft plastic collection has been pushed back from 2027 to 2030 after councils said they would not be ready, and the findings of a three-year trial called FlexCollect warned the UK had insufficient capacity to recycle it all.Council bosses say no decision has been made on whether the scheme will become permanent. Those living in the area say the existing regime is already hellish enough.'It's absolutely ridiculous the amount of bins we have,' Denbighshire resident John Jacob said. Residents of Denbighshire are being asked to recycle plastic bags at home - having already been charged with sorting rubbish into various tubs and bags (pictured) 'And if you look at the flats, they have nowhere to put all their bins - so they're stacked up outside. It makes the streetscene look terrible. All you see is bins.'For the last two years, Denbighshire residents have sorted their own rubbish into a cavalcade of containers - after being forced to surrender the singular recycling bin that was once separated and sorted by the council for them.Homeowners now shuffle paper, metal, plastic and glass into colour-coded stackable boxes known as a Trolibocs, which can be topped with a pink box for batteries. Small electricals can be left on top for collection.Food waste goes into a silver caddy in the kitchen which is emptied into a larger orange one outside.But it is cardboard recycling that provokes some of the greatest fury, crammed into a woven blue sack that locals say falls apart in months. 'It's a chocolate teapot', one resident said on social media.When the sack does come apart - and locals say it will - a replacement is £12.50 and takes up to four weeks to arrive. The council says it is reviewing the policy.Elsewhere, residents can also request a black and purple caddy for sanitary waste such as nappies and incontinence pads, a garden waste service ranging from £47 to £77 a year, and clothing collections made on the council's behalf by a third party.Those who refuse to submit to the council's regime will struggle: general waste wheelie bins are only collected once every four weeks, slashed from once a fortnight.Denbighshire resident Linda Muraca said on social media: 'Putting your bins out has become a full-time job and especially in the fourth week when they all go out. 'You should see the state of our roads once the refuse collectors have been. Rubbish is often all over the place.'While Denbighshire pushes ahead with more recycling, the initial roll-out was dramatically botched: council bosses were forced to spend millions on extra lorries and staff after collections were missed. The Labour-Plaid Cymru coalition that oversaw its rollout collapsed in September and the authority is now run by an independent with support from the Conservatives.But Labour councillors are nevertheless sticking to their environmental guns after rolling out the rehash two years ago: one described those who refused to do their part as 'lazy, lazy, lazy'.They said: 'They are lazy and they cannot be bothered. They probably don’t want to look after the environment and the climate change and blah, blah, blah, alright? They are not thinking about their children, they are not thinking about the place they live in. 'I mean, good grief, we had a huge hot summer this year and that’s all to do with climate change, running out of water and whatever. All these things are contributing to the climate change. That is why we need to be recycling far more.'The unnamed councillor added that they 'recycle everything', telling The Times: 'We want to reduce (waste) and the Welsh government wants to reduce it. Denbighshire has been leading the way.' Three of the bins Denbighshire residents have to contend with: the silver caddy and orange caddy are for food waste, while the blue general waste bin is collected once every four weeks Fly-tipping in Denbighshire is at its highest level in 15 years: according to official statistics, the number of reported incidents rose 230 per cent between 2024 and 2025, from 1,121 to 3,699.The council says this is because it changed to a new reporting system that allows it to record more incidents. But reports also rose 46 per cent between 2023 and 2024 before the new system was introduced. It insists there is 'no evidence of a causal link' between the expanding number of ways people sort rubbish and incidences of fly-tipping.But while Welsh ministers push locals into ever-more-elaborate ways of sorting their rubbish, the postcode lottery of bin collections finally came to an end in England earlier this year with the introduction of 'common-sense' rules on bins.Residents of English councils now need only sort rubbish into four containers: general waste; food waste; paper and card; and glass, metal and plastic.The TaxPayers' Alliance, a frequent critic of bin bonanzas, has called on Denbighshire county council, and Wales at large, to follow suit in simplifying bin day.Grassroots development manager Benjamin Elks said: 'Welsh households are sick to the back teeth of being treated like unpaid binmen by overzealous council bosses.'The ongoing fiasco in Denbighshire exposes the sheer madness of an over-complicated, multi-bin regime that leaves residents wading through sorting nightmares while local services grind to a halt.'Welsh ministers must scrap this administrative circus, and bring in the simpler collection rules being rolled out across England to give long-suffering Welsh taxpayers their sanity back.'A Denbighshire County Council spokesperson told the Daily Mail the soft plastics trial had been met with a 'positive response' and 'good uptake', with 2,700 bags collected from the 4,500 homes in the first week of the trial.Most residents, they said, put out 'three containers a week' for recycling - the three-part Trolibocs as well as their food caddy and cardboard bag - while stressing that the hygiene, garden and clothes bins are optional. The spokesperson added: 'Denbighshire is proud to be working alongside residents to achieve some of the highest recycling rates in the UK. 'The soft plastics trial builds on the established recycling service and is helping the council prepare for forthcoming Welsh Government changes to recycling requirements that will apply to all local authorities in Wales. 'We recognise that any change to collection services can take time to adapt to, and we will continue to work with residents to ensure the service remains effective, practical and easy to use.'