A COUNCIL has been overwhelmed with cardboard following a surge in online shopping.

Conwy County Borough Council said that despite sending out an extra vehicle to collect large cardboard items "there's often still too much for us to manage".

One of the problems is that boxes do not get flattened and take up extra space - one cardboard box was "the size of a skip", while another household had not flattened boxes used for a "whole kitchen refit".

The council has collected 518 tonnes of cardboard over the last year, the equivalent of more than one million medium-sized boxes.

It has urged residents to flatten cardboard boxes, spread the days they are put out for collection over a number of weeks or to use free household recycling centre services.

The council said: "In the last year we’ve collected an extra 518.66 tonnes of cardboard from residents. That’s the equivalent of 1,037,320 medium moving boxes.

"More online shopping means a lot more cardboard and our crews can’t fit it all in the recycling trucks. We have an extra vehicle to collect bigger cardboard, but there’s often still too much cardboard for us to manage.

"Flatten your boxes before you put them out. This makes a huge difference to how much cardboard we can collect

"If you have a lot of cardboard, put it out for collection over a few weeks."