ANGRY Upton residents who claim they are disappearing under mounds of stinking rubbish have had their pleas to change waste collection times rejected.

Purbeck District Council changed its weekly collection to fortnightly in October, alternating with a recycling box, sparking outrage from residents.

Now councillors have snubbed a petition signed by 1,500 residents calling for the district council to change back to weekly household rubbish collection.

The district council claims reverting back to a weekly collection scheme would cost each household in Purbeck £21 in extra council tax a year, and would jeopardise its recycling targets because people would be less inclined to think about waste minimisation.

But resident Kathy Hirons, of Dacombe Close, who has a family of four, has questioned the district council's figures and vowed to fight on.

"No one has any problem with recycling. Everybody is happy with that," she said.

"What we are concerned about is bags of rubbish building up because the council won't come and pick them up. We put out about five bags a week, but you can only fit four bags in the wheelie bin, which means there's going to be a lot of rubbish left over. It's disgusting."

The district council explained that the Recycle for Purbeck Scheme was set up to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill sites and to meet government recycling targets.

It claims that failing to do either would result in significant council tax rises because the penalties being imposed by the government and the cost of sending waste to landfill site are set to rise steeply in 2011.

Environment spokesman and deputy leader of the district council Cllr Nick Cake said: "Whilst we know some of our residents would like to see us revert to a weekly refuse collection, not only would such a move have a negative impact on the extent to which people recycle, but it would also have huge cost implications."

First published: December 19