PKC fined £100k over recycling ‘fails’
And missed targets cost a further £1m in tax
Perth and Kinross Council has been hit with over £100,000 of fines in a year for recycled waste that has been “contaminated.”
And the SNP group has calculated PKC has been slapped with a further £ 1 million of landfill tax over the past three years for not meeting its recycling target.
The local authority - which in 2019 committed to leading by example in tackling climate change - recycled less than half of its waste in 2020/2021.
An update on council services was provided to PKC’s environment and infrastructure committee meeting on Wednesday, October 27.
Depute director of communities Clare Mailer told the committee the level of contamination in household recycling had increased above the 20 per cent threshold.
Residents’ blue bins have been left unemptied and slapped with red tags in recent weeks in a bid to reduce contamination.
But this prompted anger with many residents bewildered as to why their blue bin had been rejected.
Perth man Thomas McLean fears people may even be forced into fly-tipping if blue bins in his street continue to be left unemptied.
The Logie Crescent resident has seen his blue bin fail to be collected twice since September 28 due to ‘contamination’.
Thomas claims pedestrians are placing rubbish, including carrier bags and plastic padding, in it when passing by.
“There was other folk putting rubbish in the bin. What am I meant to do about that?” he said.
“The whole of Logie have also had their bins not emptied.
“I put a padlock on my grass bin and
I can be there to take it off before it is collected at the weekend.
“But am I going to have to babysit a blue bin until Tuesday and not go to my work to stop folk doing what they are doing?
“They put the red cards on the bins and there is not a proper description of what can’t go in. It says a bag but the type of bag could be anything.
“They are going to push folk to illegal fly-tipping.
“A better solution is to educate people more. Educate the younger generation as well so they know about it.”
Mrs Mailer told councillors they had taken residents’ complaints on board and would provide more information on why bins had been red-tagged.
PKC’s head of environment and consumer services Mark Butterworth said they were seeking to improve their engagement with residents.
“We are improving and increasing the training of our staff to remind them to do that.
“We are also hoping to engage with residents and actually knock on the door and explain to them why it’s contaminated and where they have gone wrong.
“It’s not ideal by any means to leave a bin unemptied and basically leave a problem for a resident. But it’s a balance between collecting them and incurring hefty penalties - which we have done - or not collecting them and trying to educate them in terms of why they’ve gone wrong and how to fix it.”
Mr Butterworth told councillors the six-figure sum paid in fines could have been better spent on education in the region.
SNP councillor Grant Laing asked if recycling bins being left unemptied resulted in even less waste being recycled if people then decided to dump all their waste in their green bins to avoid being slapped with a red tag.
Less than half of PKC’s waste was recycled in 2020/21 against a target of 60 per cent.
In 2020/21 47.4 per cent of PKC’s waste was recycled. This is a decline from 52.5 per cent in 2019/20 and 51.4 per cent in 2018/19.
Mrs Mailer said there was no evidence of residents not bothering and putting everything in their green (general waste) bin instead.
SNP councillor Mike Williamson asked how much money PKC could have saved by meeting its recycling target.
Officers were unable to provide this information at the meeting.
Cllr Williamson said he calculated PKC had been hit with an extra £1 million in landfill tax from failing to meet its recycling target.
Cllr Williamson said: “I just want to express my astonishment that our failure to meet recycling targets is seeing the council haemorrhaging approximately £1 million because of that failure.
“Haemorrhaging £1 million and no one seems to have the detail of that is absolutely astonishing.”