You can find out how your local council fared
16:48, 21 Oct 2025Updated 17:50, 21 Oct 2025
Manchester city council reported the highest number of missed bin collections in the region(Image: ASphotowed via Getty Images)
Councils in Greater Manchester reported over 115,000 missed bin collections last year, a new survey has found.
Manchester City Council recorded the most missed collections out of the ten local authorities in the region, but Trafford posted by far the worst rate of missed collections when the size of the local population is taken into account.
Overall, UK councils missed over 10,000 bin collections every working day last year, with local authorities blaming strikes, safety red tape and even ‘warm and wet weather‘ for letting down taxpayers across the country.
You can see how your local council performed on the bin run last year by searching your postcode on this interactive map:
Manchester City Council missed a total of 22,736 bin collections in 2024, which was roughly the same as the previous year. This was the most in Greater Manchester and the wider north west.
Some councils praised their ‘brilliant’ bin collectors who work all-year round, in all weather, and pointed out millions of bins were successfully collected, saying missed collections representing a tiny percentage.
Numbers had to be considered in the context of the number of residents, and that not all reported missed collections had always been missed, others pointed out.
Salford had the second highest figure at 18,608 missed collections followed by Trafford on 16,446.
However, Trafford has less than half the population of Manchester, and also a smaller population than Salford, so the rate of missed collections was higher there.
Freedom of Information requests were submitted to over 350 local authorities responsible for collecting bins in England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. All but 17 of the councils supplied the relevant data showing the number of missed collections in 2024.
Tameside Council said it did not hold or record information about missed bin collections, but the authority did say that it had received 178 complaints about waste services between April and December 2024.
Of the town halls which responded with data, Bury had the lowest number at 5,645. They were followed by Oldham with 7,014 and Rochdale with 7,360.
Here are the number of missed bin collections for each council in the region:
- Manchester – 22,736
- Salford – 18,608
- Trafford – 16,446
- Wigan – 13,328
- Bolton – 11,759
- Stockport – 9,902
- Rochdale – 7,360
- Oldham – 7,014
- Bury – 5,645
- Tameside – no data
The worst-performing council in the UK was Barnsley in South Yorkshire, which recorded by far the most missed bin collections during 2024. The shocking state of rubbish collection services in Barnsley led to the council spending £1.8m on recruiting extra staff earlier this year.
Barnsley, which has been under Labour majority control for the last 50 years, said it had missed 146,000 bin collections – that’s equivalent to 2,800 every week.
Coun James Higginbottom, environment spokesperson for Barnsley council, said: “Over the last couple of years, we’ve had several periods of significant disruption to waste collections. Some of these have been due to severe weather, some due to fires at waste transfer facilities, and some have been due to our crews making adjustments to their working practices to make sure they comply with our safe systems of work.”
Trafford had the third highest number in Greater Manchester and the North West(Image: Manchester Evening News)
Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager at the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “The scale of missed bin collections across the UK is shocking.
“Households are left wondering what they’re paying council tax for as their rubbish piles up and bin lorries fail to appear. Councils need to stop bungling basic services and start delivering what residents pay for and rightly expect.”
But a spokesperson for the Local Government Association defended the record of councils, saying: “Public satisfaction with local waste services remains very high, which councils have worked hard to achieve.
“Councils carry out hundreds of millions of waste collections from households per year – not including recycling collections. These figures actually show that an overwhelming majority of bin collections were completed without complaint.”
The councils which missed the most bin collections in 2024 for each nation and region are listed below:
North West
Manchester – 22,736
Salford – 18,608
Trafford – 16,446
Wirral – 16,323
Cheshire East – 15,654
England
Barnsley – 146,000
Birmingham – 78,183
Brighton & Hove – 47,614
Thurrock – 41,231
Leeds – 34,662
What Greater Manchester’s councils say
The Manchester Evening News approached all 10 councils and asked if they wanted to comment on the data.
A Tameside Council spokesperson said: “We currently do not have the technology to accurately record the number of missed bins reported by the public and are working on new technology which will allow us to do this in the future.”
A spokesperson for the One Trafford Partnership, a a collaboration between Trafford Council and the company Amey who provide a number of services in the borough, including waste collections, said: “The One Trafford Partnership (OTP) is totally committed to providing a reliable and efficient bin collection service and empties 10 million individual household bins every year – resulting in collection rates of more than 99.8 per cent.
“We always aim to collect and empty every single household bin in the borough but sometimes face issues accessing roads due to poorly parked vehicles.
“If we genuinely miss a bin, we always try to return the very next day to empty it. If your bin has not been emptied for any reason, please log onto our webpage Report an issue with bins or other waste related matters.”
Bury Council cabinet member Alan Quinn, pictured, praised the borough’s ‘brilliant’ bin crews
Councillor Barbara Bentham, Lead Member for Neighbourhoods, Environment and Community Safety at Salford City Council, said “Salford City Council empties approximately 16 million bins per year.
“In 2024, we missed 18,608 which equates to 0.11% of all collections. We aim not to miss any bins, but sometimes it isn’t possible to access bins due to roadworks, double-parked cars, icy weather and other obstructions, but we always return and empty the bins at a later date where we can.”
Councillor Alan Quinn, Cabinet Member for the Environment and Climate Change at Bury Council, said: “Our bin crews are brilliant – they’re out in all weathers, all year round, delivering a high-quality service to our residents.
On average, in Bury, we empty 23,000 bins each collection day, Tuesday to Friday, – that’s around 92,000 bins every week and more than 4.7 million annually.
“Across the year, 97% of bins are emptied as scheduled with only 3% of collections missed due to operational issues such as blocked access, severe weather, or an occasional vehicle breakdown. When this happens, we aim to return to complete the collection the next working day.
“We understand how important timely collections are to our residents. That’s why we’ve continued to invest in technology and added an extra vehicle and crew to help balance rounds and ensure collections stay on schedule.
“There are also two ways residents can help us deliver a smooth service. First, by knowing which bin to put our on which day – we support this with email bin alerts, which now have over 53,000 subscribers, covering nearly 59% of households.
“Second, by ensuring bins are correctly used – we cannot empty bins that are contaminated with the wrong items. To help with this, we distribute an up-to-date waste guide and calendar to every household each December – we also provide bins information online.”
“Together with our residents, we’re proud to keep Bury cleaner, safer and greener.”
A spokesperson for Stockport Council said: “We know how important this service is to residents, and that missed bins can be frustrating.
“Our crews complete around 13 million collections a year, with more than 99.9% made successfully, and we’ll keep investing in improvements to make sure collections run smoothly across Stockport.
Paul Barton, director for environment, at Wigan Council said: “Wigan Council serves the second largest population in Greater Manchester and our teams do a fantastic job collecting around 225,000 bins each and every week; that’s 11.7 million a year.
“Although we endeavour to collect all bins on the scheduled collection day, that is not always possible. In the small percentage of instances (0.114%) where this is the case, our teams arrange collection at the earliest possible opportunity.”
Rochdale Council declined to comment. The remainder are yet to respond.