Street left baffled by nine waste collections

Thousands of people living on the border of Islington and Hackney are baffled by their councils' rubbish removal policy - with nine different collections each week.

Green, brown and blue boxes, garden waste bags and normal black bin bags are all collected weekly on the roads that border the two boroughs.

Homes from Shoreditch to Stamford Hill face confusion over recycling and rubbish collections with different sides of roads having different collection days.

One street, Southgate Road, has been named the most confusing recycling spot in the UK by Friends of the Earth.

Michael Dalton, 63, a resident on the Islington side of Southgate Road, said: "It is impossible to understand - a total nightmare."

Anneli Lindhe, 25, who lives on the Hackney side, said: "Stuff gets mixed up and the binmen leave it festering. Once they refused to take rubbish for three weeks."

But a spokesman for Hackney council said its scheme was "not complicated", and Islington council's spokesman said none of the requirements were "rocket science".