The last delayed bins to be collected by Ipswich council after last week's heavy snow were emptied on Monday - allowing waste crews to start their regular recycled waste collection on Tuesday morning as usual.

Waste crews in Ipswich work four long days a week and carried on working through last week's snow and ice - although the conditions did slow them down and lead to many properties with uncollected waste after they were due to have been emptied.

But catch-up teams went out on later days and carried on working on Saturday and Monday to ensure no bins were left uncollected.

A spokesman for the borough council said there was still one refuse truck on standby in case any residents called to say their rubbish had been missed - but officials were fairly sure every bin had been emptied.

The council was gratified by the number of thanks they had received for the crews from their work over the the last week when the weather had been so bad - many people had personally come out to thank crews as their bins had been emptied and there had been many messages left on social media.

Miri Seaden tweeted: “Collected our bins and waved to our children. Thank you guys for your service at IP3.”

And Oliver Holmes, a Liberal Democrat councillor for St Margaret's said: “I’ve just had my bin emptied. Thanks @IpswichGo – this is really exceptional service in this weather.”

Phil Smart, Ipswich council portfolio holder for the environment, said: “I am proud to be a councillor in Ipswich where despite Storm Darcy trying its hardest, our crews worked tirelessly all week through the snow and freezing temperatures to get most of our residents bins emptied on the scheduled day.

"We published a daily progress update by road and our crews also worked over the weekend to ensure that all the bins had been emptied by the start of this week. Our thanks to all our crews and residents and who make this town work well.”

Meanwhile in East Suffolk the job of catching up on a week of missed collections is well underway. Teams from across the district are effectively completing three weeks' collections into a fortnight - with no garden waste being collected from green bins until March 1.

A spokesman for East Suffolk Council said their crews would be working longer hours - but would not be out at the weekend and they had made a good start on their catch-up collections so far.