A SHOCKED resident has claimed his food waste bin was "refused for collection" because it contained eggshells...despite eggs being allowed in the food waste bin.

Oliver Rodgers, 42, claims he was told by refuse collectors on Tuesday morning that his food waste collection would not be collected because it “contained egg shells” that should have been put in the black waste bin.

Mr Rodgers, who lives in Sunnymede, Billericay, and is a communication officer for Labour East, admitted he has had “no problems” with the new waste collection scheme until now.

Burstead Tory candidate and cabinet member for waste management in the last administration, Kevin Blake, admitted if the claims were true, then the bin should have been collected and offered his apologies.

Mr Rodgers said: “This is an embarrassing oversight, if they are saying eggs are acceptable, you have to question why eggshells are not.

“I am a supporter of recycling and making sure people do this properly, but equally, in terms of the way the scheme has been implemented, it has been quite confusing and difficult, and this has extended to people we know on our street.

“I rely on the council website to find out what is acceptable, it is an important resource to make sure you know what to put where.

“This waste is going to pile up in our caddy now and we are going to have to take it to the dump, the knock-on effect now is I have to book a slot and there are issues with that as well.”

Mr Rogers claims he was told that eggshells would be an issue to break down but has never on any other occasion been pulled up on this and neither have his neighbours, admitting that “generally the new waste system has been okay.”

Mr Blake has stated he believes there is no issue in what Mr Rogers did and he would “go down there himself and collect it”.

He said: “I have no problem with this, I haven’t been told that you can’t do this. Staff could use more common sense, it shouldn’t have happened, and he gets my personal apologies for this.”

Kevin Blake is running in today’s local elections for the Burstead ward with Andrew Baggott (Con) and Richard Moore (Con), against Leslie Banks (Lab), Idriss Chraibi (Green), Daniel McGarry (Green), Andy Fryd (Lib Dem) and Chris Daffin (Lib Dem). Three seats are available