North Ayrshire Council have claimed that an increase in alerts about missed bins is them being proactive in telling people and not due to the introduction of the new purple bins.

One month ago on April 1, the purple bins were introduced and since then, alerts about missed bins of all colours have been a constant feature on the council’s social media channels.

But council bosses say that the roll-out has been success despite the issues.

A spokesperson for North Ayrshire Council said: “Within North Ayrshire, our bin collection crews uplift thousands of bins each day.

“When dealing with such a large volume of collections, there can be occasions when the crews are unable to complete sections of their run.

“This can be due to a number of reasons such as vehicles blocking access to a road or street, or the bin lorry breaking down.

“However, when we encounter issues beyond our control that result in bins being missed in a particular area or street, we endeavour to alert customers as quickly as possible and put in place alternative arrangements to complete the collections.

“We are delighted with the successful roll out of the new purple bin collections and considering this has been such a large-scale change to the service, the levels of missed bins is very low compared to the number of collections made.

“We are, however, being more proactive in keeping residents informed of collection delays – which is why there has been an increase in the number of alerts on our social media channels.

“By using social media to issue bin collection alerts, we can advise customers in almost real time that their bin will not be collected as scheduled and when we will return to uplift it.”

The spokesperson added: “We would like to thank all our residents for their cooperation during the recent bin changes and their continued support in increasing the amount of material we recycle here in North Ayrshire.”