Binman 'filmed urinating on wheelie bins'

A resident filmed a refuse worker as he appeared to urinate on a set of wheelie bins.

The local captured the binman, clad in orange hi-vis gear, as a crew made their rounds in Kirklees, West Yorkshire.

It is understood the worker was identified and suspended pending disciplinary action, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

The authority apologised and said it would be replacing the bins.

In the video, filmed by a female resident, the worker appears to relieve himself while a colleague attends to bins being tipped into a wagon.

The woman behind the camera can be heard to say: "Once again, one of the binmen having a pee against my bins. This is Kirklees Council."

The video was filmed on 20 January in an unconfirmed location within the district and uploaded to Twitter, but has since been deleted.

In a response on Twitter, the authority said: "We are sorry that this has happened, it is not acceptable for our waste collection operatives to do this. We will identify the individual and ensure it doesn't happen again."

Cabinet member councillor Paul Davies said: "This is clearly unacceptable and inappropriate.

"We're investigating this matter immediately and taking appropriate action. We apologise to the local residents and are replacing the bins.

"Our refuse collectors, as well as all other front-line workers, have worked hard during the pandemic to keep the services we all rely on running but the behaviour in this video is not what we expect.

"We have facilities at our depots and welfare vans on hand to ensure our staff can access toilets should they need to whilst working and we will be reminding all teams of this."

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