Disgusting footage has emerged of Glasgow cleansing workers jumping to avoid rats leaping from bins during collections in the city.
The video taken on Kelvinhaugh Street, in the west end last week, shows binmen collecting blue recycling bins from a garden outside a block of flats. A refuse worker can be seen kicking the bin at a distance, as one rat leaps out and scurries away.
As he continues to kick the bin, more rats jump out from the sides of the bin and run away through the grass. The Glasgow City Council worker lifts the lid of the bin and jumps back as another rat leaps out towards him.
A second clip taken on Duke Wynd, near High Street, shows workers kicking large general waste bins to disperse at least a dozen before they can be collected.
As each bin opens, more rats jump out. The cleansing workers can be heard shrieking as a large rat sprints towards them.
Cleansing workers say the situation has reached a "crisis point" and staff are having to deal with vermin on a daily basis.
Chris Mitchell, who worked in cleansing for 20 years, branded the situation 'out of control' and said the vermin population has grown more in the last two years than throughout his career.
The 46-year-old, who became convener for the GMB Trade Union 10 years ago, told the Record: "It's unacceptable. I've been in this game for 30 years and I have never seen the population grow as much as I have in the last two years. In the midst of this there has still been talk of making cuts in environmental health, public health and cleansing.
"Workers are the ones that are at the forefront of combating this - if you cut that, then there is going to be hell to pay - this is becoming a public health crisis.
"Rats are getting into people's homes, their gardens, their bins. We face vermin every single day. Binmen see at least 10 to 20 rats a day. They carry disease, it's disgusting.
"Glasgow City Council are in complete denial. The situation is dire. We are trying our best to clean it - but we don't have the tools and resources to achieve that, and it's having an effect now. The rats are taking over."
A spokesman for Glasgow City Council said: “Unfortunately our staff can encounter pests during the course of their work and we have well established procedures designed to protect their health and safety. Most importantly if staff are concerned about an infestation they should report the incident so our public health team can look at an appropriate course of action.
“We would never expect our regular cleansing staff to go into known areas of infestation, such as where there is a nest of rats, until steps had been taken to deal with the issue. Rats are basically in search of food within discarded waste and they will thrive in areas where bins are misused or bin courts are poorly maintained.
“To prevent issues with rats in bin courts it is vital that residents ensure food waste is properly contained within a suitable bin and bin areas are kept tidy. We have received no report from staff connection in to the Kelvinhaugh St back court, but our pest control team will now visit the premises and take appropriate action.
“The video from Duke Wynd unfortunately shows bins being misused and a bin area in poor condition, which impacts the effectiveness of pest control treatments. We are liaising with the factor for these premises on how these issues can be addressed and we are also investigating the possibility that some of the rodents in the video are water voles, which are a protected species.”
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