A green-fingered couple are seeing red after their carefully-collected garden waste was deemed too heavy to remove.

Ian and Chris Hall have called the fortnightly collection a joke.

Mr Hall, who had a liver transplant in January, regularly spends time in the garden and bags up the waste for recycling.

But the couple from Longridge Park, Colchester, were stunned when the driver told him he wouldn't be taking it because of the weight.

Mrs Hall, 50, showed the Gazette she can easily lift the two bags, which weigh in at 21.5kg and 23.5kg.

"The man left the bags claiming they were too heavy, but I can lift them with one hand and my husband was able to lift them despite having recently had a major operation," she said.

Dave McManus, street care and recycling manager at Colchester Council, said: "There is a limit in weight, you have to bear in mind the staff are carrying these bags all days long.

"If every bag was 50lb it would be a very strenuous job."

He added: "The men are normally very good.

"It would need to be quite heavy for them to refuse it."