Outrage as Kirklees refuse collector caught urinating on roadside bins
and live on Freeview channel 276
The man’s behaviour – filmed by a resident on January 20 as bins were being emptied – has been described as “clearly unacceptable and inappropriate”.
The council has pledged to replace the bins in question.
The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) understands that the worker has been identified and suspended pending disciplinary action.
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Hide AdIn the video the binman, clad in orange hi-vis gear, can be seen relieving himself whilst a colleague attends to bins being tipped into a wagon.
Commenting on what she is filming a female resident can be heard saying: “And as you can see, once again, one of the binmen having a pee against my bins. This is Kirklees Council.”
The video was posted on Twitter.
Responding on Twitter the same day Kirklees Council said: “We are sorry that this has happened, it is not acceptable for our waste collection operatives to do this. We will identify the individual and ensure it doesn’t happen again.”
Asked by the LDRS to confirm whether the worker had been suspended the council said it was “not appropriate” to comment on the details of staff disciplinary matters.
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Hide AdBut senior councillor and Cabinet member Paul Davies said: “This is clearly unacceptable and inappropriate.
“We’re investigating this matter immediately and taking appropriate action. We apologise to the local residents and are replacing the bins.
“Our refuse collectors, as well as all other frontline workers, have worked hard during the pandemic to keep the services we all rely on running but the behaviour in this video is not what we expect.
“We have facilities at our depots and welfare vans on hand to ensure our staff can access toilets should they need to whilst working and we will be reminding all teams of this.”