The waste company at the centre of a bin controversy has apologised and pledged to catch up with the backlog of uncollected waste by the end of the month.

Suez Recycling and Recovery UK took over the £152 million contract to empty bins in Swale, Maidstone and Ashford on March 25.

However, the service has been dogged by problems resulting in rubbish piling up on the streets and hundreds of complaints from fed-up residents.

This afternoon, Suez said sorry and vowed to fix the issues.

Its general manager Vinnie Masseri said: “We are all working hard to get used to the new contract and to collect all the waste that is being presented, however, we know that at the moment, we’re not completing all of our rounds on the scheduled day.

“This isn’t the standard of service we aim to provide longer term and we expect the service levels to improve as everyone gets used to the changes.

“We’d like to apologise to the households affected and reassure them that our teams are working hard to minimise disruption on the ground.

“We thank residents for their patience while we bed in the new service. In the meantime, please do leave your bins out if they have not been collected and we will get to them as soon as possible.”

The Mid-Kent waste partnership is a joint initiative between Swale, Maidstone and Ashford councils.

Environment committee chairman for Swale council, Rich Lehmann (Green, Boughton and Courtenay), also apologised.

He said: “We know the service hasn’t been running as well as we would like and we apologise for this unreservedly.

“We are trying to create a better, more reliable, service for everyone, and this has meant a lot of changes – for residents, collection crews and back-office staff.

“These changes include new routes, new vehicles and new systems that will bring improvements to the service in the longer term, but they are taking time to bed in.

“We have been identifying the root causes of the issues that are delaying collections and doing everything we can to fix them as soon as possible.

“We are working closely with Suez at all levels to put together a robust, deliverable, plan to catch up on what has been missed so far.

“They are already recruiting additional drivers to help with this and have committed to providing additional resources until the service is settled, and we would like to thank you for your patience while the backlog is cleared.

“Once it is, I’m sure people will start to see the benefits, with fewer delays and more reliable collections.”

In a separate Facebook post, Cllr Lehmann said bins could even be emptied on Sundays to help catch up - but that would depend on working hours regulations.

The local authorities’ switchboards have been jammed with frustrated callers who want to know when their rubbish will be picked up.

Cllr Richard Palmer, The Swale Independents representative for Hartlip, Newington and Upchurch, predicted the problems could last months.

He added: "I am calling this the Suez Crisis, as it has been longer than the actual Suez Crisis in the 1950s which lasted 10 days.

"It's a mess. Of course, you expect teething as it's a new contract but it seems to be a larger issue although I am not sure what that it is.

"In my consistency, things seem to be getting worse for residents not better.

"If you drive along the A2 you will see how bad the problem is.

"There are communal flats that have bins which haven't been emptied for 10 days.

"I expect this will take months to sort out, not weeks, but I hope I am wrong."

Swale council explained there have been changes to the routes crews use to get around the borough, which have contributed to the backlog.

The local authority says the routes "haven’t been updated for a long time and they aren’t as resilient as they need to be".