Flintshire County Council has revealed that missed bin collections over the last five months have increased almost 46% on the same period last year.
According to the authority's quarter one residual waste collections and recycling performance report, between April and August this year the council's Streetscene waste collection teams missed 11,799 bin collections, compared to 8,097 during the same five months of 2024.
Streetscene officers have now admitted those mistakes were the result of significant problems with their systems coupled with wholesale changes to working practices.
"Missed collections are totally unacceptable and I'm not here to make excuses for them," said Chris Goddard, Streetscene service manager.
"It is our problem and we need to sort it out. The reason there has been an increase in missed collections is the problems we have had integrating our three systems.
"We have an archaic digital legacy system, a newer customer relationship management system and a new AI telematics system to plan out routes and which households are due for which collections.
"But we have had issues getting them to work together and that has caused some of these problems.
"That was then exacerbated by staffing issues, changes to shifts and changes to routes as we moved to three-weekly collections."
The problem of missed collections - particularly repeated missed collections, was raised by Buckley Cllr Mike Peers and Gwernaffield and Gwernymynydd Cllr David Coggins Cogan at Flintshire's Environment and Economy Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, as they reviewed the report.
Cllr Coggins Cogan asked why residents had to resort to complaining to the media to get missed collections resolved.
"It is embarrassing for members and it diminishes confidence in this council when residents come to us as elected members to sort out issues like missed collections and nothing is done, yet they go to the local press and it gets sorted."
Mr Goddard said that highlighted the volume of complaints that the council deals with regarding waste collections.
"We are under an avalanche of complaints," he said. "We receive complaints from residents and local members and it is overwhelming. Some complaints even come through when our crew is still out and hasn't quite got to the resident in question yet.
"We are looking at a new reporting system where people can log a complaint via postcode which we hope will make the number of requests coming in more manageable rather than missing a street and having 10 separate complaints logged."
As well as missed collections, Flintshire has also seen its brown bin collection scheme sign-ups continue to fall this year.
Residents can pay £30 per year to have their garden waste taken away but more and more people are turning their backs on the service.
In 2021 the number of brown bin sign-ups was 33,000. This year that has fallen to 27,000.
"We think people may have seen it as a cost too far with council tax rising," said Chief Officer for Streetscene and Transportation Katie Wilby.
Flintshire is still waiting to see if the changes to its waste collection and recycling programme will see further waste infraction charges - imposed by the Welsh Government when Flintshire missed its 2022/23 and 2023/24 recycling targets - are lifted.
The authority saw a £663,000 charge for missing its 2021/22 target scrapped earlier this year. It still faces two outstanding fines totalling £1.326m.
It is also expecting another infraction charge for 2024/25. Faced with a recycling target of 70%, the county only achieved 63%. The final figure from the Welsh Government has not yet been published but council officers estimate it could be around £1.1m.
There was good news within the report however. The changes to Flintshire's waste collection strategy has pushed the authority much closer to the 70% target.
In the first quarter of this fiscal year Flintshire Council recycled 69.76% of waste with residual waste - black bin waste - volume having decreased 18% and food waste collection having increased by 16%.
Overall the council has saved £313,782 on waste collection in quarter one, with an annual savings target of £650,000 still the goal for Streetscene.
Mold Cllr Chris Bithell praised the Streetscene team for the introduction of the three-weekly collections, despite the challenges.
"Making this change was a huge undertaking for Streetscene and not one that should be taken lightly," he said. "We have heard about some of the problems Streetscene has faced in the first five months - the fact there haven't been more is a testament to the sterling work of the officers and to the residents who have changed how they manage their waste."
Before members of the committee formally acknowledged the report, Cllr Peers asked for Streetscene to return to the committee with more detail on missed collections.
"I want to add a recommendation that Streetscene return to this committee in February 2026 with a detailed report of missed collections and repeated missed collections for scrutiny," he said.