The Council is yet again changing it's flawed recycling scheme, this time it's a new system for checking that residents are putting the correct items in their recycling bins.

What will now be happening is that the refuse collectors will be opening and checking the contents of your 'big' recycling bin. If they note any items in the bin that are not recyclable then they won't be emptying it. Instead a sticker will be placed on it telling you that there are items in it that are not recyclable and telling you to ring a council number.

The idea is that you then call this number to be told what it was that shouldn't have been in the bin, offered 'help' with your recycling and then to arrange for someone to come back to empty the bin once you have removed the offending item. We assume that until you remove the items they won't take the bin away.

We understand why there has to be a system to check that the right items are placed in the recycling bins. If there is too much 'contamination' in the bins when they arrive at the recycling plant then the loads are rejected and the council has to pay for the whole load to be sent to landfill.

However, again the introduction of the scheme seems to us to have some substantial flaws:

Yet again the council are introducing a sensible policy using draconian language which is already causing concern to many of our older residents, What happens if the item that shouldn't be in the bin wasn't put there by you? The refuse collector can't tell and residents can't protect their bins from passers by putting items in them.  Given the problems with the telephone system set up to support the introduction of the recycling scheme, we certainly hope we are going to avoid the same delays and confusion that happened then.

Another problem lies with foreign students who simply don't understand and frankly don't care about what rubbish goes where. The likelihood of them calling the line, or if they do understanding the problem and what they have to do, is fairly remote don't you think? Then happens with the waste that's not being collected?

In common with the selective collection of green waste bags, we are now going to have waste vehicles driving around making individual collections. That doesn't seem very environmentally friendly to us. And when the council is already £3.65 million overspent for the year it all doesn't sound very cost effective.
Surely a better system would be to simply have the waste people remove the offending article, put it in the little bin and take the waste. The refuse collector could then place a note through the door of the house it came from informing the residents they had made a mistake and asking them not to repeat it. If they did, after a number of weeks, then this system of not taking the waste could perhaps be used.