A waste collection service has issued a statement after a chicken shop in Nottingham was accused of dumping litter on the street, with locals calling it "disgusting". Waste collection service Biffa say they did not collect the rubbish due to an issue with payment, which has now been resolved.
It comes after claims that the rubbish from Chickaros on Alfreton Road, Radford, was causing rats and flies. Local businesses say that they reported the overflowing bins to the council. They say the rubbish from the takeaway filled up the alleyway behind the shop and neighbouring Cromwell Street. Chickaros admitted the rubbish had built up due to delays in bin collections from commercial waste management service Biffa.
A Biffa spokesperson said: “The customer's account was put on hold for several weeks while an issue with payment was sorted out. That has now been resolved. As a result, we have now collected almost 300kg of waste from the customer’s two Biffa bins and cleared several black bags from the immediate area.
“Additional waste that’s being stored in an old chest freezer in a nearby alleyway would need to be transferred to the Biffa bins before we could collect it. Our customer service team is in contact with the business to resolve any other issues."
Abdul Habid, who was speaking on behalf of Chickaros, said the problem was "100 percent" the fault of Biffa due to delayed collections. He argued that other businesses and passers-by had made the problem worse by adding to the rubbish.
He said: "It's being sorted now. The public also think it's okay to leave a few more bags as well. We were hoping Biffa would come and pick it up."
Daniel Orellana, 38, manager of The Music Inn, said: "What can you say, it’s disgusting. We have reported it many times to the council, they say it is not their responsibility for the alleyway so they do not clean it. We have cleaned it up many, many times."
He added: "It's not just them, there's lots of takeaways doing the same thing and dumping it. Somebody has to pick up the pieces, we are paying so much in rates and it’s disgusting.
"Do whatever they have to do to get it sorted. But it’s not just them there's loads of them. It has been reported two to three times at least. There was a disabled woman who lived at the back and could not get her wheelchair down because of the rubbish," he said.
Local resident and student Ewan Lawson, 19, whose house neighbours the alleyway, said: "You can hear the rats at night squeaking away. They [Chickaros] literally empty the rubbish into the alleyway. About ten minutes ago the council came and took about ten bin bags. They had all split open and were full of rotting food. It was disgusting."
He added: "It is disgusting. I mean a couple of times they have had their bins up there and it is overflowing and I cannot move the car without moving the bins."
Owner of Phoenix Express Barbers, Lorenzo Murray, claims the smell from the rubbish is affecting how he operates his business. He has to burn incense and candles to keep the smell out. He said: "The place smells and my shop is next to it and you can't leave the window open because of the smell, so I close it.
"There are a lot of flies and I close the door. I like to have it open for the fresh air but now the scent, I can't. I have to close it so sometimes the place can be a bit hot but it has to be shut because if you open it, flies will come in." Lorenzo added: "We have got a lot of takeaways around here. The rubbish comes from there and the students as well, they buy a lot of food and most of them dump the stuff."
"At the end of the day it is not good for the businesses, it is not good for the food businesses. The scent of the flies is not good for them."
