Tuesday July 7th 2026
Written by Midlothian View Editor, Phil Bowen
Midlothian Labour councillors have criticised the SNP administration councillors for presenting the rollout of the new green recycling bins as a “success”, despite widespread public frustration and significant operational failures across the county. They say it is insulting to residents.
Labour councillors say the SNP’s praise for the roll out is not shared by residents, who have faced missed deliveries, confusion over new collection schedules, and repeated failures to complete bin lorry routes – leaving entire streets uncollected. They say overall the council is failing to collect around 5,000 bins a week.
Councillor Willie McEwan, speaking on behalf of the Labour Group, said:
“Residents deserve honesty, not spin. The SNP Councillors congratulate themselves while communities across Midlothian live with disruption, confusion, and basic service failures. The reality on the ground simply does not match the glowing picture being presented. If the Cabinet member with responsibility for waste services, Cllr Diane Alexander and deputy Provost Douglas Bowen claim this as a success then I would hate to see how bad things would need to be to be classed as a failure”
The Labour Group has highlighted the following issues:
– new bins not delivered to households
– confusion on collection days caused by poorly communicated changes to collection schedules
– bin lorries frequently unable to complete routes within the working day, resulting in whole areas being missed
– a lack of adequate planning and resourcing for the rollout
– a hasty implementation driven by concerns about losing the Scottish Government grant, despite the funding having been available for a considerable time
Councillor McEwan added:
“This rollout should have been properly planned, properly resourced, and properly communicated. Instead, the SNP councillors rushed ahead and residents are paying the price. It is unacceptable to claim success while so many people are experiencing service failures.”
The Labour Group are calling for:
– a full and transparent report on the rollout
– detailed information on missed deliveries, complaints, and operational planning
– a lessons learned review before any further service changes are introduced
– an end to selective reporting that highlights positives while ignoring failures
Councillor McEwan concluded:
“Residents deserve a waste and recycling service that works. They also deserve a Council that tells the truth about what is going well and what is not. We will continue to hold the SNP councillors in charge of this fiasco to account until these issues are resolved.”
Midlothian Vew asked the council to respond to the Labour Group’s criticism.
A Midlothian Council spokesperson said: “The aim of the initiative is to reduce residual waste and increase recycling, delivering both environmental and financial benefits for Midlothian.
“This has been a major service change, and while there were some operational challenges during implementation, the council’s waste and recycling teams have done an exceptional job in getting the new service up and running around six months earlier than originally planned. This early implementation allowed Midlothian Council to take advantage of a £2.2 million grant from Zero Waste Scotland — funding which would otherwise have had to come from the council’s existing budget.
“We fully recognise that some residents experienced inconvenience during the changeover period, and we apologise for that. However, the decision to move ahead early was taken because the long-term environmental and financial benefits, together with the opportunity to secure significant external funding, were considered to outweigh the short-term disruption.
“The majority of residents have embraced the new service changes, and early indications show a decrease in residual waste and an increase in recycling. The level of service disruption has now reduced and stabilised, and the initial teething problems have been addressed.
“Monitoring of contamination levels is taking place, and initial figures show that contamination in the new green bin is around 5%. This is a significant achievement so early in the new collection cycle and reflects both the efforts of residents and the work of the service in supporting the transition.
“Performance has also improved significantly since the initial implementation period. The most recent figures (to Friday 3 July) show that 99.97% of the 125,308 scheduled bin collections were completed with only 40 bins genuinely missed.
“The revised arrangements are designed to improve the quality of recycling and make collections more efficient by reducing the amount of recyclable material coming into contact with food residue, which often means it cannot then be reused.
“Separating paper and card from plastics and cans will also allow further sorting to take place, meaning that a greater variety of packaging types can be recycled correctly.
“This means that an increased volume of waste recovered through household recycling in Midlothian can be sent on for processing, which is more economically and environmentally sustainable for everyone.”
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