Nearly 25,000 rubbish and recycling bin collections were reported as missed by residents during the last four years, new council figures reveal.

The data reveals 13,408 collections of general waste and 11,401 of recycling were reported as being uncollected by residents between 2010/11 and December last year.

The number of missed rubbish bin reports each year has increased from 2,987 in 2010/11 to 4,246 in 2012/13.

But there was a drop in the number of recycling bin collections reported missed in the last full year recorded – from 4,417 in 2011/12 down to 2,349 in 2012/13.

Labour said the 24,809 “missed” collections, revealed after a member’s inquiry, may only be the tip of the iceberg, and called on the council to take immediate action to uncover the true scale of missed bin collections.

Cllr Helal Abbas, Labour’s spokesman for the environment, said: “Collecting the bins is a ‘bread and butter’ issue.

“It might not be the most exciting thing in the world, but residents expect a competent council to be able to collect their bins.”

He added: “Twenty-five thousand bins lying around the borough clearly shows Mayor Lutfur Rahman isn’t even up to the basics of running a council.

“Hopefully this latest debacle will show people why they need to dump this rubbish mayor in May.”

The mayor’s office called the number of missed bin collections “unacceptable”, but said it was only a small proportion of the number of successful bin collections.

A spokesman said: “Although any missed collections are unacceptable, there were more than 2.1million collections made between April to December 2013, with more than 99.64 per cent of those collected on time.

“Only 0.36pc of the total were missed, so the Labour Party are once again playing with figures to show the borough in the worst possible light.”