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Rubbish bins have been confiscated and residents threatened with criminal prosecution after a row over recycling rules led to a two-ton pile of rubbish building up outside flats.

Residents said that they had been forced to leave the bags piling up as there were only four bins for general waste between 15 households and they could not fit any more in.

But officials claimed they removed special recycling bins from outside the building because the occupants were breaking rules involving different sets of bins for various types of waste.

The row escalated after a two-ton pile of rubbish bags built up around overflowing bins outside Highfield Court.

Thanet District Council responded with a letter warning residents that it was "illegal" to leave the rubbish anywhere other than inside a bin and threatened to prosecute any "offenders".

The letter added that officials had taken away the building's blue recycling bins which would be returned "once the black bin system is being used and operating properly".

One resident Kathleen Sullivan, said: "I'm 87, I've had two hip operations and I can't get to the recycling centre in Manston because it's more than two miles away. Recycling is piling up and I don't know what to do."

The dispute is the latest in a string of incidents in which residents have faced prosecution or been left without rubbish collections after falling foul of complex waste disposal rules and the introduction of fortnightly waste collections to force people to recycle more.

A study by the neuroscientists at Sussex University in August found that sorting the weekly recycling is as complicated as completing a Sudoku puzzle.

Last month Victoria Clarke, 24, from Stockport, Greater Manchester, was ordered to pay £700 by magistrates for putting out her rubbish on the wrong day.

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