Council pays £500k to sort out rubbish in wrong bins

A COUNCIL may tell residents to recycle less because ‘confusing’ rules mean rubbish is put in the wrong bins.

Newcastle City Council said it is costing £500,000 a year to sort out the wrong bin rubbish.

It is now considering limiting recycling to a small number of items that are ‘very clearly able to be recycled’ such as cardboard boxes.

It would mark a huge turnaround after years of residents around the country having to separate rubbish into more and more bins to help hit recycling targets. Plastic is often too contaminated with food waste to be recycled meaning local authorities have to pay to send it to landfill or an incinerator.

Currently UK households face 39 sets of rules over what plastics they can recycle. To add to the confusion, it varies from one local authority area to another.

In Newcastle, yoghurt pots and margarine tubs cannot be recycled whereas Reading will accept these items. While drinks and shampoo bottles can be recycled in 99 per cent of households, only 18 per cent are permitted to recycle carrier bags.

Newcastle councillor Marion Talbot said many colleagues were ‘as confused as everyone else’ and called it ‘ridiculous’.

Nick Kemp, city cabinet member for the environment, said: ‘We are looking at potentially identifying a smaller number of items that are very clearly able to be recycled.’

‘As confused as everyone else’