Residents should be wary of ‘red tag’ scheme

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of the East Kilbride News.

In August, this column talked about South Lanarkshire Council’s plan for reducing the amount of contaminated recycled waste heading to landfill.

And from this week, it is a scheme which has come into operation.

From now on, recycling bins with the wrong materials or items included will have a red tag placed on them and won’t be picked up until the next collection. In the meantime, the householder will have to spend their time wading through the contents and sifting them out.

Such a situation would, quite clearly, not benefit a resident on the receiving end of a red tag.

A police officer once told me prevention is better than a cure so on page 7 you will find a story which contains lists of items both suitable and unsuitable for a blue bin.

Hopefully this information helps. Will the red tag scheme make a difference? Your correspondent refers you back to August’s column – if people are unsure about what goes where, they will just opt to dump an item in their general refuse bin.

It will be interesting to see if the tough love approach works and we will be viewing the council papers closely.

Elsewhere in the paper, and we have another four pages of P1 class pictures for parents and carers to enjoy. Our last batch of pictures will be in next week’s paper and we’re delighted that they have again proved to be so popular with our readers.

Fancy a shopping trip on us? Turn to page 16 and enter our £50 EK, East Kilbride gift card competition.

We also have cinema tickets up for grabs on page 8 and a £50 Di Maggio’s voucher to be won on page 30!