BIN collections in West Fife remain disrupted due to the recent severe weather.

Despite efforts to catch up on missed collections, there remains a backlog of unemptied bins.

Fife Council's operations manager Roddy Mann said, 'I'd like to say sorry to those householders for the inconvenience this may have caused and assure them that we are putting in place additional measures to empty bins." He added, "Our priority over the next few weeks is to empty bins that contain general household waste. "That's where we will be focussing all our efforts over the Christmas period.

"The extra uplift of general waste we provide in most areas over the Christmas period will help ease the situation.

"However, I'm confident that the additional measures we are putting in place will further shorten the time it will take to offer householders their normal waste collection service but of course this is very much weather-dependent." 'We have cancelled all blue bin collections for the next three weeks. "This is not a decision I made lightly but these are unprecedented times.

"Cancelling the blue bins will allow us to redeploy those trucks that would have been emptying blue bins to focus on emptying general waste bins.

"I'd urge householders, where possible to store their paper and cardboard and then take it to a local recycling centre.

"In addition, we are also offering householders the option of using their brown bin to store extra waste over the Christmas period.

"The brown bin should be put out with the grey bin in December." He added, "For the first time, Fife Council had arranged to pick up Christmas trees with the brown bin, something we were really pleased to offer. "Sadly, due to the disruptions we cannot guarantee that if the Christmas tree is placed either in or at the side of the brown bin it will be recycled. "It would help us enormously if householders could take their trees to a recycling centre where they will definitely be recycled.

"I'd like to thank the public for bearing with us over this period ,wish them all a Happy Christmas and let's hope that there's only a 'sprinkling' of snow on Christmas Day only." For up to date information on your waste collection service visit www.fifedirect.org.uk/wasteaware or call the Recycling Helpline on 08451 55 00 22. You can also follow Fife Council on facebook and twitter.