Paul Elgood has been getting a taste of what life is like for those who do Brighton and Hove's dirtiest job.

The leader of the Liberal Democrats on Brighton and Hove Council annoyed dustmen when he criticised the amount of rubbish left in the streets of his Brunswick and Adelaide ward at the beginning of the year.

They challenged him to join them on their round and find out for himself what it was like at the front line of refuse collection.

So that's where he was yesterday, dressed to impress in a fluorescent protective jacket and prepared to get his hands dirty.

Hazardous steps, abusive residents, unlit basement rubbish stores, burst bags, dead pets -

binmen have to deal with it all, as Coun Elgood discovered.

He joined Colin Avery's team collecting mounds of rubbish from basement storage areas and tipping it into the dustcart, moving slowly up and down the Brunswick streets.

As they went, he learned about some of the daily problems faced by the four-man crews as they go about their work.

Of these, one of the biggest is the number of used syringes lying around and thrown away with household refuse.

They can easily pierce the dustmen's protective gloves and are hard to spot in the dark basements.

Mr Avery said: "I've had a needle stuck in my hand. It made my arm swell up like a balloon and in the end it turned out to be insulin.

"Another problem is broken glass, which sticks through the bags like daggers and can easily hurt someone."

Coun Elgood had complained there was so much uncollected

rubbish in the Brunswick area

it "resembled a landfill site". Although he said it was not a criticism of the binmen themselves, Mr Avery and his colleagues said they were offended by the implication they were not doing their job properly when they had been working flat out since Christmas to clean up a record amount of waste as quickly as possible.

Mr Avery said: "We have been starting at 5.30am and often not finishing until 7pm with no lunch break to get it done when our normal hours are 7am to 3pm.

"I agree rubbish piling up is a health hazard and an eyesore, but we can only work so fast and we are doing the best we can.

"This Christmas, people had the longest break since the war. People had two massive parties and they generated a lot of rubbish."

"My crew are the oldest in Hove and in 30 years on the job none of us had ever seen anything like it.

"This is the sixth time we have done a collection from this area since Christmas and it's still causing problems.

"In the first three collections alone we collected 57.5 tonnes of rubbish from only a few streets."

Feelings among Brunswick and Adelaide residents have been running high on the subject of rubbish over recent weeks and several have complained.

Adrian Peacock, of Brunswick Place, said: "Rubbish collection seems to have been a bit inadequate in the last couple of weeks. But normally it is fine."

Rhoda Schneider, of Ivy Mews, off Waterloo Street, said: "I haven't got a problem with the refuse collection, which is excellent on the whole, but the street cleaning is abysmal.

"I could show you items of litter that I know for a fact have not been moved since before Christmas and the state of the lawns is absolutely disgusting."

Jonathon Davidson, of Brunswick Place, said: "There is broken glass everywhere and the litter piled up has brought rats down from the park. It's just not good enough."

By 9.30am the collectors had already gathered 11.5 tonnes of trash from three streets.

But almost as fast as it was

being collected, it started to reappear.

Mr Avery said: "The residents have a moan at us and we moan about them. Sometimes they are right and sometimes we are right.

"It's just annoying to be told we are not working hard enough when we have been pushing ourselves to the limit.

"One woman told me she had expected to see us on

Christmas day. But I was at home with my family like everyone

else."

After a day's hard graft at the dirty end, Coun Elgood was full of praise for the dustmen.

He said: "The guys do an excellent job, though I don't think I'm very good at it."

But he criticised the council and Sita, the firm that collects Brighton and Hove's rubbish.

He said: "I still think Sita management and the council have mismanaged the contract and it isn't good enough. They need to put more resources into rubbish collection and maybe increase it to three times a week in this area."

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.