Thousands of food caddies still have to be delivered to homes in Medway.

Around 10,000 homes do not yet have their compost caddies for leftovers and kitchen waste.

They were introduced in Medway last month following a £14m government grant to encourage more people to go green.

Since the end of October all rubbish – including recycling and garden waste – has been collected weekly.

Previously blue and white bags and the brown wheelie bins were collected on alternate weeks.

Originally the caddies were expected to be delivered to every household before the new system came into force, but the council still has thousands more to deliver.

A Medway Council Spokesman said, “Delivering food caddies to around 100,000 homes is a very large operational task and, for that reason, we broke down delivery into two stages.

“All that we scheduled to deliver by 15 November – which was the deadline for the first stage – have been delivered. This equates to 86,699 properties across Medway.

“There are a very small number within this stage of reported undelivered kitchen caddies.

“As well as accounting for these, we have now moved onto stage 2, which involves delivering to homes in streets where not all properties are suitable for brown wheelie bins.

"Stage 2 accounts for a further 8,776 homes based in 214 roads in Medway.

“We would ask those residents to please bare with us while we continue delivering these.”

Residents can check whether their road was in Stage 1 or being scheduled in Stage 2, by visiting the website www.medway.gov.uk/recycleweekly