Edinburgh salon rages at Council as rubbish lies on street for 12 days

A SALON kicked up a stink after a mound of rubbish dumped outside its premises was left for almost two weeks after it was first reported.

Rubbish dumped in Frederick Street. Picture: Scott Louden

Sonia Gill, receptionist at Angus Gordon Hairdressing in Frederick Street, contacted the city council 12 days ago about the mess.

She thought it would be dealt with right away, especially when environmental services told her waste was top priority.

But it wasn’t until just an hour after the Evening News quizzed the council about the mess yesterday that bin men arrived to take it away.

“I had been calling for 11 days straight and each time I’ve spoken to a different person,” Ms Gill said.

“They initially told me that one of their street teams who go around the city picking up litter would be along and it was top priority, but nobody ever arrived.

“Then, yesterday morning, maybe an hour after an Evening News photographer had been round, a van turned up to take it away.

“It was really strange, they never told us it was coming or anything, the only reason we knew it was happening was we were waiting for a client to arrive and were looking out the window and spotted them.”

A spokeswoman for the council apologised to the salon for the delay in retrieving the waste.

“This rubbish, which we understand was a case of fly-tipping, has now been collected by our street cleaning team,” she said.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused to adjacent businesses and the public. We are always looking at ways to improve our reporting system and follow-up.”

The council has come under fire for messy streets, particularly during the Festival, on social media. Tweets earlier in the week pointed out overflowing bins at the foot of The Mound as well as similar cases in Dundas Street, Ferry Road Gardens and Blair Street.

But environment leader Councillor Lesley Hinds was quick to defend the city’s waste management scheme and called on the public to do more to curb problems.

“This summer we’ve enlisted a crew of extra staff and it’s great to see so many of them out and about dealing with the challenge of trying to keep our city clean,” she said.

“We’ve also added larger bins and increased the frequency of litter bin collections in the city centre to cope with demand, while for the first time we’re trialling sensors on some of our bins. However, we can’t ignore the rubbish bins that are overflowing and we make every effort to attend to these.

“That said, we need the public to help minimise its effects by disposing of litter responsibly.”