July 22, 2022 4.55 pm This story is over 27 months old

North Kesteven council leader hits back at ‘incredibly strict’ bin complaint

Resident angry after crews didn’t take bin for the second time

A Lincolnshire council leader has responded to an angry resident’s complaint that purple-lidded bins are allegedly leading to more fly-tipping due to rejections.

A Branston resident was left fuming after his bin for paper and cardboard was rejected on Thursday due to plastic food wrapping being left in.

His wife offered to remove them, but bin men were already moving on.

The man says he has become so frustrated that he will take the rejected recycling to the tip – however the council leader has vigorously defended the purple-lidded bin policy.

The Branston resident said: “This is the second time our recycling bin has been refused to be collected. We take great care in our environmental responsibilities but the poor attitude of the collection employees leave me almost speechless.

“On the previous occasion I sifted through the bin and took recycling items to the tip and non-recycling items to the appropriate bins. This time I will bag all the contents of the recycle bin and simply take them to the tip and put in the landfill bin.

“The incredibly strict policy of the council has contributed to a lack of recycling in this community and indeed lead to the scourge of fly tipping.”

The purple-lidded bins are being rolled out across Lincolnshire – but crews have had to reject some due to contamination | Photo: Boston Borough Council

Councillor Wright responded to say that it shouldn’t take residents long to properly sort their rubbish into the correct bins.

“The current policy of rejecting contaminated bins was introduced, with a considerable amount of publicity and initially education, through chats on the doorstep. We only reject bins where the contamination is clearly visible and amounts to an issue,” he said.

“Your ‘thin plastic wrapping’ whilst being in the wrong bin to start with, becomes an even bigger issue if then replicated by your neighbours and results in whole loads being rejected by our recycler and then have to be transported again, to the incinerator.”

He said that crews had to reach 48,000 properties in the district and “do not have the time to wait whilst individual bins are sifted.”

He added: “The enforcement policy has led to a huge improvement in our recycling and is not linked to fly tipping or a decline as you claim.

“We all have environmental responsibilities, and these start in the home, with taking just those extra few seconds, to ensure we put the right thing in the right bin and avoid having to incinerate material that should and must go back into the recycling system.”

Purple-lidded bins were introduced in North Kesteven last September for clean and dry paper and cardboard, such as frozen food boxes, cardboard boxes, newspapers and junk mail.

Shredded paper or any dirty or greasy items (such as pizza boxes) should go in the black bin instead.