Dog walkers are worried the council’s ‘any bin will do’ approach to dog waste disposal will lead to more overflowing bins in the borough.

Since the beginning of April, Merton Council has been slowly removing dog waste bins from pavements and parks in the borough, and are asking residents to put their dog’s mess into general waste bins to reduce collection costs.

However, residents are worried the removal of these bins could cause overflowing issues, and have sent in pictures of a number of over-flowing bins in the borough to demonstrate what they call an existing problem with collection.

Dog walker Helen Yates, of Aragon Road, Morden, said: “Where I walk at Wimbledon Rugby Club, they have two tiny little bins that were always overflowing before, and now with people putting their dog waste in there, they are worse."

“My concern is that people will stop picking up the dog waste if there aren’t enough bins,” she added.

Mrs Yates highlighted that while the council removed all four bins from her local park in Tudor Drive, they have yet to remove the sticker on the general bins that ask people to not put dog waste in them.

She is worried that confusion such as this will lead to people not bothering to pick up after their dogs.

The council’s director of environment and regeneration, Chris Lee, aims to prevent this mind-set by increasing the enforcement action on people who are caught not responsibly disposing of dog waste with an £80 fixed penalty notice.

He said: “Every year we spend over £5 million clearing up after people who leave our streets and parks dirty, and that includes those who don’t clean up after their dogs."

Mr Lee said they would be putting more bins in near the existing ones, with a total of 400 bins in parks and 700 on the streets.

He added: "Faeces left on the ground in parks and our town centres can be harmful, especially to young children if they get it in their eyes or mouth, causing serious illness and injury, so making more bins available and upping our enforcement will help us keep our parks safe places to play and our streets cleaner.”

However people are not convinced that the bins are emptied regularly enough to handle the rise in rubbish.

Merton Councillor John Sargeant, said: “The problem is that the general waste bins just aren’t collected frequently enough at the moment to make it work.

“If they think it’s a good idea then they must guarantee that bins will be collected more often."

The council finalised the initiative as part of the budget setting process last year, and is part of larger plans to help the council save £32 million following central Government funding cuts.

Dog waste can now be disposed of in all waste bins except for those specifically for recycling.

Anyone caught not clearing up after their dog will be issued with a fixed penalty notice of £80.

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