Almost eight out of ten families in the district have told Brad-ford Council they are happy with the present method of rubbish collection - and many thought it was good or excellent.

The survey comes as the Council prepares for a major consultation exercise over controversial proposals to dump dustbins in favour of wheelies.

But today the chairman of the Council's waste management sub-committee, Councillor Gillian Whitfield, said: "We are always looking at ways to improve the service."

The district's binmen voted in favour of wheelie bin collections after assurances there would be no redundancies or loss of pay.

However, the Council says there will be savings because the high level of sickness through back injuries and handling dangerous waste, such as syringes, will drop.

The workforce on the bin lorries would be reduced, but binmen would be transferred to other parts of the cleansing service.

The Telegraph & Argus revealed that the Council was in final talks with the binmen's union, although the proposals had never gone to a committee.

A scheme will now be drawn up following public consultation which will go to the sub-committee. But a routine survey carried out regularly by Council officers, which will be reported to the sub-committee on Thursday, shows people are pleased with the existing system - although there are some problems.

These include removing plastic bags full of rubbish from bins and leaving them in the street for at least half-an-hour before they are collected by wagons.

The survey shows that 64 per cent of households felt the Council was not promoting recycling and waste recovery and 17 per cent wanted wheelie bins to improve the service. People thought bin-liners were too thin, and not wide enough, and a few said they were difficult to tie.

On street cleaning, 38 per cent of households said the district was generally satisfactory, while 42 per cent said there was widespread litter and rubbish.

Many people wanted more street sweepers and litter bins, and weekend and Bank Holiday working by binmen.

But today a row broke out over the survey as the Council's Liberal Democrat group attacked Labour, saying it had failed to respond to public demand for recycling at a time when it was planning to switch to wheelie bins.

Group leader Coun Jeanette Sunderland said: "If there is going to be a change, surely it would make sense to introduce a recycling scheme especially since more than twice as many people said they wanted more recycling as opposed to the 17 per cent who said they wanted wheelie bins."

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