HOUSEHOLDERS are being urged to be patient over the festive season as rubbish collection days will be changed because of the holidays.

Letters are being sent out to 113,000 homes reminding people of the days their refuse will be collected from the kerbside over the next two weeks.

Around 33,000 of them would normally expect their bins to be emptied on Mondays or Tuesdays but there will be no collections on those days on Christmas and New Year weeks as staff are on holiday.

Instead householders will get a letter telling them of the revised collection dates for the blue, green, brown and purple bins for those two weeks.

People living in flats who normally have their bins collected from the back court or a lane behind their homes will also notice a change in collection days.

But the city council insists the bins will be emptied as close as possible to normal collection times.

Each year around Christmas the local authority is inundated with phone calls and emails from people complaining their bins have not been lifted.

Land and environmental services divisional manager Tony Boyle has spent the past six months devising a plan to ensure refuse is lifted as quickly as possible.

He said: “Our guys get Christmas Day and Boxing Day and January 1 and 2 off which this year fall on Mondays and Tuesdays so there will be no collections on those days.

“We have written people affected telling them when their bins will be collected instead.

“We are also putting in extra resources to get round the back courts and lanes as quickly as we can.”

Over the festive season, the volume of rubbish dumped by households increases by around 50% as people dispose of wrapping paper and cardboard boxes.

That coupled with bad weather puts added pressure on the refuse collection staff.

Mr Boyle said: “I have been preparing for this since June and want to reassure the public we are on it.

“I would ask them to be patient if their bins are not collected on the usual days because they will be collected.”

Anyone who is desperate to dump rubbish can visit the council's waste recycling centres at Polmadie, Shieldhall, Dawsholm and Queenslie which apart from Christmas Day and January 1 will be open as normal.