Gran, 94, wheels bin two miles to rubbish tip after waiting weeks for collection
A 94-year-old grandma trekked for two miles to take her bin to the tip after becoming fed up with no one collecting it.
Nan Miller pays an extra £47.25 a year, on top of council tax, to have her garden waste picked up from her home in Canterbury, Kent.
But multiple bin workers have been on strike since the beginning of the month, leaving Nan’s bin unemptied for three weeks.
The great grandma-of-two told Canterbury City Council that, despite her old age and heart condition, she would dump the waste herself if it was not collected by Friday afternoon.
When nothing was done, she begrudgingly started pulling the bin along the pavement, occasionally putting her thumb out to try and get a lift.
She said at the time: ‘This is a real pain in the neck. And I’ve got a real pain in my neck – I’m not just doing this for fun.
‘I’ve already walked three times as far as I did when I had to do this years ago and I thought I was more than old enough to be doing it then.’
Eventually, passerby Nadine Fleming stopped and the women put the bin in the boot.
‘I saw her struggling along the road with a wheelie bin in one hand and walking stick in the other and it broke my heart,’ Nadine said.
The tip was closed by the time they reached it but, luckily, another good samaritan, Taylor Nickolson, stepped in.
He works at the Tyre Pros shop just around the corner from the tip and offered to empty Nan’s garden bin into his own and give her a lift home afterwards.
Nan said: ‘If they think they can get away with it, well I’m jolly well going to show them that they can’t.
‘I’m fed up to the back teeth – which are my own. My bin needs emptying so I’m going to push it to the tip myself. They think “oh well, it can wait” but, I’m sorry, I’ve given up waiting.
‘It’s going to put a strain on me, of course, but my roots are in the north and we are a determined people – don’t play with me.’
The local authority said they had tried to contact Nan that afternoon, to tell her the bins would be emptied the following day.
A spokesperson said: ‘We share her frustration about her garden bin and are sorry she felt that she had no option other than to wheel her bin down to Vauxhall Road.
‘On Friday afternoon we rang on a number of occasions and also emailed her to say that Canenco had catch-up crews working and would be returning to her on Saturday, but unfortunately, there was no answer to any of this communication.
‘Despite the ongoing strike action by GMB members, crews have been out working hard, getting to as many bins as possible.
‘This includes the full black bin service every day and good numbers of garden bins.’
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