Embarrassed council chiefs in Edinburgh have described their own refuse collection service as "unacceptable" - after a massive rise in complaints about missed bins.

Calls from residents about missed or overflowing bins in the Scottish capital have risen by one-third.

With rubbish routinely strewn across Edinburgh streets, there's now an average of one call about refuse collection every ten minutes to the city council's 24-hour complaints line.

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And Councillor Lesley Hinds, the council's environment leader, admitted that the level of complaints -- 53,862 between July 2015 and July this year, compared to 40,309 the year before -- was unacceptably high.

She said: "I have instructed the head of environment to come forward with an action plan. The current level of complaints is unacceptable."

Edinburgh Green leader Councillor Steve Burgess said the problem was "staggering".

And he said of the record number of complaints: "That is only the tip of the iceberg.

"For every complaint made there are bins which just go uncollected as residents resign themselves to another missed day.

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"Over the last three years we have been told that missed collections were a result of a new service bedding in.

"Well, the service has been changed for a while now, and the fact that missed collections are still increasing so dramatically is simply not good enough.

"Leaving aside the obvious problems of street litter and smell, there is a longer-term problem.

"The city urgently needs residents to play their part in reducing waste, recycling more and driving down rubbish being sent to landfill.

"It is much harder to persuade residents to do that when the basic service is not even working."

A series of shocking pictures show the state of bins across Edinburgh - at a time when the city should be looking at its best for millions of festival vistitors.

Read more: Edinburgh City Council to issue sat navs to bin crews to help find bins

As well as concerns over mess, vermin and health and safety, many complaints have centred on the vile stench caused by overflowing rubbish.

Cllr Iain Whyte, who represents the Inverleith ward, recently had to wait a week for the city to sort out an overturned bin on Royston Terrace.

He added: "It's definitely a problem, and to me it's a core service the council provides. To not get that right is a shocking failure."

Cllr Hinds said: "We are well aware how important an issue refuse collection is and the council is committed to delivering an efficient service for the people of Edinburgh - we're always working to make significant improvements to the service."

She said the number of complaints "only accounts for less than 0.2 per cent of our collections".

And she claimed: "The figures do need to be treated with a degree of caution as the same complaint may be reported several times by different people, and not all complaints are due to a failure by the council."