Thousands of city bin collections missed in 2025

Problems with uncollected waste in Southampton emerged in early 2024

A council has missed more than 15,000 bin collections so far this year, a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has revealed.

Problems in Southampton emerged in early 2024 when the same number of bins was reported as uncollected in a single month.

At the time, Southampton City Council blamed a new contract which meant waste crews were "no longer incentivised to rush".

The authority said the number of missed collections in 2025 was 0.3% of the total and steps were being taken to improve the service.

A total of 15,395 collections of general waste, recycling, glass and garden waste were missed between the start of January and the end of July, according to FOI data obtained by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS).

The peaks were at the start and end of the reporting period when more than 1,000 bins were not collected in a single week.

Councillor Peter Baillie, who leads the authority's Conservative group, said: "It's down to the [Labour] administration not getting a grip on waste, not getting a grip on new vehicles in the fleet.

"They are now scrabbling around trying to find six of seven new or second hand vehicles for the end of September.

"This should have all been planned a couple of years ago on a normal renewal schedule."

Liberal Democrat councillor Sam Chapman said: "Problems with vehicles, staffing and equal pay have been left unresolved for years and residents are paying the price.

"With food waste collections about to be introduced for a quarter of a million people, it's hard to see how Labour can cope on top of the current disruption."

Green Party councillor Matthew Renyard added: "The decision to renew the fleet is one that is long overdue and should have been taken some time ago."

A Southampton City Council spokesperson said: "Between January and July, our crews carried out more than six million scheduled collections across Southampton.

"That said, every missed collection matters to the people affected, and we're taking steps to improve reliability across the service.

"We've already begun recruiting new drivers, replacing older vehicles, and reviewing routes to make rounds more efficient and resilient."

Previously, the authority said the new waste contract, introduced in January 2024, meant that waste crews had to work their full hours and could no longer go home when the job was done.