Greenwich road looks like a “landfill” site, say residents

A road looks like a “landfill” site, say residents, as they wait for a post-Christmas clean up.

Reduced bin collections over the festive period has left some Greenwich roads overflowing with garbage.

Bags of rubbish built up over Christmas have been left in packed bins and as residents wait for normal waste service to resume.

Christchurch Way in West Greenwich appeared in a particularly bad state.

Pictures show black bags wedged in large bins, with some left on the ground due to a lack of space.

There was also litter left by bins along the street.

Residents also appeared to have left garbage outside their homes as they ran out of bin space.

One person alerted Greenwich council on Twitter: “Do you reckon you could get some street cleaning done along Christchurch that’s looking more like a landfill than a residential street?”

The council replied: “Thanks Kevin. I’ll let our street cleansing team know for you.”

Another Twitter user also posted pictures of fly-tipped garbage and wrote: “Herbert Road – the dumping ground of Plumstead.”

Last month, Greenwich Council Leader Dan Thorpe warned that the Omicron variant of Covid had affected bin staff in the run-up to Christmas.

He said: “We’re losing so many staff. They are catching Covid and being wiped out. We’re under huge pressure.

“On Monday [December 13] we lost more and more of our waste service staff – we’ve not been able to collect everyone’s bins. Rounds have been missed. In the waste service we’ve lost 14 people with Covid today [December 15] alone.”

It is not clear whether staff shortages have added to the backlog, or if the delays were down soley to a reduced Christmas service.

Greenwich council have been contacted for comment.