The Hills Shire council, one of at least ten Sydney councils affected by a decision by Transpacific to ground its entire national fleet late on Tuesday, said a number of Cleanaway trucks has passed a safety inspection overnight.

Collections were expected to be back at full strength by Friday, with all rubbish bins collected by Sunday afternoon, the council said.

But a statement from Transpacific suggested the wait could be longer for some. It said on Thursday its waste management services would be fully operational "over the next week, following discussions with the regulator".

Residents in one of Sydney's worst affected suburbs, Ashfield, have called on their council to do more after learning that their garbage may not be collected until the end of the weekend.

"Unfortunately, council cannot confirm at this stage when normal collections will resume," a spokeswoman for the council said.

"We are hoping that all garbage and recycling due to be collected this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, will be collected by the end of the weekend."

A council worker who asked not to be named, criticised the council's reaction.

"Why can't they fix it quicker, they should have bloody back up vehicles," he said.

"This is going to become a health problem, it's lucky its not summer."

Tracy Lin, a resident on Bland st, Ashfield, said she had not been informed of the disruption to the garbage service and was surprised to find garbage still on her street after the usual Wednesday pick-up.

"Usually they are good, but it's been here for nearly two days now, if it's not until the end of the weekend it's going to become a big problem," she said.

Kerry Roser, a Church st resident, had health concerns about the rubbish collection.

"It's not good is it, you've got to be worried about health issues. The council has got to get it sorted somehow."

It is understood that Ashfield Council has approached Marrickville Council to lend a hand in picking up the garbage.

Marrickville council runs its own fleet of garbage trucks. The council deployed four crews to Ashfield this afternoon.

"We will continue to provide as much support as we can as long as it does not impact on Marrickville council's service," a spokeswoman for Marickville council said.

However, Marrickville will be unable to provide services to Ashfield during their normal collection service between 5am and 1:30 pm.

Transpacific took all of its 2800 trucks off the road after one of its vehicles smashed into three stationary cars waiting at traffic lights in Adelaide on Monday afternoon, killing two people.

The move to voluntarily ground the fleet in order to conduct the safety audit came just just before Comcare, the federal government's workplace insurer, issued Transpacific with a prohibition notice requiring it to do so.

"We have made a strong commitment to all our employees, customers, communities, and shareholders that we will operate our fleet safely and to the standards which we expect of ourselves," Transpacific CEO Robert Boucher said.

As a result of the grounding of the fleet, collections have been affected in Burwood, Canada Bay, Ashfield, Parramatta, Blacktown, Hornsby, Bankstown, Canterbury, Hawkesbury and the Hills Shire council areas.

The Hills Shire told residents to keep their rubbish bins out on the kerb until all bins were collected.

"We know that this has been a frustrating incident, but we want to assure residents that we are working closely with Cleanaway to have this issue resolved as soon as possible," the council's General Manager Dave Walker said.

The impact has not been equally felt across the affected council areas.

For instance, while Parramatta Council relies on the company for its general waste, recycling and green waste collections, Hawkesbury only uses it for bulky waste clean-ups.