WORCESTER’S controversial wheelie bins are proving a surprise hit with city binmen, who are picking up far fewer injuries at work since their introduction.

Worcester City Council says that while the plastic bins may have received a mixed reaction from the public, they have greatly improved working conditions for the men who have to go out and collect them each day.

Under the old black bag system, refuse collectors were regularly injured by needles and broken glass sticking through the flimsy bags, which were sometimes covered with animal urine.

But since the new hard plastic bins were introduced, the average number of sick days required by city binmen has fallen by a third.

In the last full year before wheelie bins were introduced (2004/05) the city’s binmen were off sick for an average of 16.47 days.

With almost all of Worcester now on wheelie bins, the average in 2007/08 was 10.93 sick days.

“I personally think they’re one of the best things the council ever thought of,” 41-year-old refuse collector Dale Addis told your Worcester News. “Foxes and rats used to get into the bags overnight, and the bags would sometimes split all over you when you picked them up. You don’t get any of that with the plastic bins.

“The bags would often be covered in cat or dog pee too, and that would go all over you – and that’s you for the rest of the day. I used to go home stinking.”

His 60-year-old colleague Phil Instan said: “You did used to get hurt sometimes – at this time of year, when people have barbecues, you’d get the big skewers sticking through and they’d go right through your leg. And there was broken glass.”

“It’s certainly helped my workforce,” said Mike Harrison, the council’s head of cleaner and greener. “If somebody gets a needle in the leg while they’re collecting a black bag, then that’s them off work for three months – and that used to happen quite a bit. Now it’s a much cleaner job, and they are getting a lot less injuries.”

Mr Harrison said the long-term physical strain on the binmen is also far less of a concern since the arrival of the new bins, which are lifted into the back of the refuse lorry by machine rather than by brute force.

“It actually means the job has changed,” he said. “You never used to get people lasting 25 years in the refuse collection trade – their backs would often be done in by the time they were 40. Now in theory people can carry on right up to their retirement.”

l In 2005/06, bin crews averaged 12.63 sick days, while black bag crews averaged 16.86. Then in 2006/07, bin crews averaged 10.29 sick days, while black bag crews averaged 25.88.