RESIDENTS who are watching bin bags pile up in their neighbourhoods have slated the council's policy of not catching up on rubbish collections.

About 70 per cent of rubbish collections in the district were missed on Monday because of the snow and ice, but the district council has said it will not be picking up bags again until the next scheduled collection in the new year – more than four weeks after the previous one.

Abridge resident Lorna Eales, of New Farm Drive, said: “The whole street has just got bags everywhere because people thought they were coming later. It's going to be a mess until the lorries turn up.

“To think they're not going to come again for two weeks is unacceptable. There will be rats everywhere.”

The Chestnuts resident Caroline Sanders, 38, said the communal bins in her block of flats were already filling up, since the missed collection.

“We're right by the river and we get the foxes up here," she said.

"That's going to be a concern with all the food waste that's going to be out there over Christmas. The roads aren't that bad.”

She added that several of the families in the flats had small children in nappies and she was worried about these filling the bins up over the holidays.

The district council's portfolio holder for the environment, Mary Sartin, said bin men had to judge whether it was safe to take the 30-tonne lorries out on icy roads.

But Buckhurst Hill resident Michele Davies, 63, of Cascade Road, said her waste collection had been missed on Monday, but lorries had been able to drive to her house to deliver furniture.

“Our next collection is on January 7,” she said. “I'm not the most adventurous driver, but I have been able to get out in my car.

“We have had deliveries with big lorries and there have been lorries up and down all the time.”

Waltham Abbey Residents Association chairman Mike Smith said he had spoken to many people living in side streets all over the town who had not had their rubbish collected.

Ninefields resident Margaret Short, 51, said the glass had been taken away from homes on the estate on Monday, but no other recycling.

"Everyone has left their bags out thinking they will come. It's going to pile up once everyone opens their Christmas presents."

A spokesman for the council's waste contractors, Sita, said 95 per cent of collections were now back to normal.

"Every day, we're trying to catch up with the collections, so we really hope the weather won't get worse again," he added.