Council getting tough on residents who put rubbish in recycling bins

Recycling crews working for Pendle Borough Council will be stepping up their efforts to check blue bins for contamination and will be putting stickers on the bins asking people who’ve put the wrong things in the wrong bin to remove them.

Carole Taylor, the council’s waste and recycling co-ordinator, said: "The amount of contamination in some of our blue bins for paper and card is totally unacceptable.

“We’ve just had 156 tonnes of paper and card rejected for recycling because it was mixed up with other rubbish including nappies and food waste! This is almost a month’s worth of paper and card recycling which has been wasted and put into landfill.

“It costs £130 per tonne for landfill. So for a 156 tonne amount the cost to Pendle taxpayers is a staggering £20,280. If people put things we can’t recycle in their recycling bins we won’t empty them until they’ve removed the wrong things which contaminate our loads.”

People can recycle it right by checking on their recycling calendar or look online on our website: www.pendle.gov.uk/bluebin

Coun. Mohammed Iqbal, leader of Pendle Council said: “The vast majority of people in Pendle recycle and we are not going to allow a minority of careless people to spoil our efforts to protect the environment.

“Pendle Council has pledged to tackle the environmental crisis which is affecting us locally, nationally and globally and declared a Climate Emergency at its full Council meeting in July 2019.

“Recycling is an important way for us all to do our bit to reduce waste in Pendle.”