NEARLY a dozen councils have scrapped their schemes to collect household waste only once a fortnight - says a national campaigner who is backing the Evening Press Bin It! campaign.

Doretta Cocks, who runs the national Campaign For Weekly Waste Collection, says local councils, including Scarborough, Southampton and the London Borough of Sutton, have seen the error of their ways and reinstated weekly waste pick-ups, while continuing to run successful recycling schemes.

Ms Cocks, who has a degree in environmental sciences, today said she supported the Evening Press's fight to call on City of York Council bosses to retain a seven-day bin collection, while backing efforts to boost recycling.

The Hampshire woman says her garden, in Chandlers Ford, has been plagued by rats, maggots and appalling smells since Eastlea, her local council, brought in a fortnightly household waste collection programme six years ago.

She said: "I started this campaign when I began to see no end of rats in my garden. I was given a 140-litre bin and it just wasn't big enough.

"We still have the system here. In the summer there are all kinds of smells and a lot of people had maggots crawling in their bins."

From next month, the York council wants to collect ordinary household rubbish every fortnight, with collections of green garden waste every other week. That has led many residents to fear their summer gardens will be full of bin bags - attracting rats and other vermin.

In Scarborough, residents who had suffered with fortnightly waste collections saw the borough council change its mind.

In July, households welcomed a new scheme which saw household waste collected weekly, and recyclable material picked up once a month.

In Sutton, support for the return of its weekly collection scheme was as vociferous as that which greeted its removal in 1999.

Ms Cocks said: "We need to go back to basics. When I see these councils threatening to bring in fortnightly waste collections it makes my blood boil.

"I hope Bin It! is successful and that your city retains a weekly rubbish collection. At least ten councils have either trialled or had fully implemented schemes, but have reverted to weekly collections.

"We are attempting, through a national campaign, to get people together from all over the UK to join us to put pressure on the government to ensure frequency of collection is addressed in the Environmental Protection Act 1990."

Councillor Andrew Waller, City of York Council's executive member for environment and sustainability, has said previously that the new system will be a challenge to the council and York's residents, but he believed everyone could rise to that challenge.

"By making it work, we will demonstrate that we are as committed to the task of protecting the environment for the next generation as any city which has made this switch."

Updated: 10:00 Monday, September 19, 2005