Glasgow residents could have their bins taken away if recycling is repeatedly contaminated, as the council steps up its efforts to increase the amount of waste reused.
The option is included in a package of proposed policies, put to councillors this week, which would also see a new bin for households with kerbside collections.
Council officials said removing the recycling service from residents would be a “last resort” with plenty of time for people to take out contaminated waste, but opposition councillors are worried it could lead to neighbours policing each other.
The extra bin would take an expanded range of plastic pots, tubs, trays with film and bottles and would sit alongside a bin for mixed paper, card and cardboard.
These plans come as Glasgow tries to lift its recycling rate, which remains among the lowest in Scotland. They will go to the city administration committee for approval and could be introduced from April.
Cllr Ruairi Kelly, SNP, the council’s convener for neighbourhood services and assets, believes the revamped service would boost Glasgow’s effort to improve recycling and reduce plastic waste.
“Putting the wrong material into the wrong bin may seem harmless, but contamination costs our waste management service millions of pounds every year,” he said. He added the new bin will “cut out the confusion on how to recycle”.
However, Labour’s Cllr Jill Brown said while everyone wants to see more recycling, she is concerned about how the contamination policy will be policed.
“For residents in tenements who may have short term lets, neighbours or absent landlords may end up paying the price for refuse being put in the wrong bins.
“The threat of not having bins emptied because they are contaminated or having enforcement action will be a big concern for many who have no control over what goes into communal bins.”
Under the policy, bins would initially be tagged as causing an issue and left unemptied, residents would be informed and given advice on how to recycle properly.
If the issue continued, the council would take away the bins and people would be directed to other options, such as public recycling sites.
Cllr Jon Molyneux, Greens, said he was “worried that it sends a message that recycling is optional” and asked whether other last resort options were considered, including charging for collection.
A council official said charging had been considered but wasn’t being taken forward “at this stage”. She said the new policy would be monitored, adding: “Clearly by taking that bin away that is actually shooting ourselves in the foot as well. At the end of the day it’s not really where we want to be.”
The official also said cleansing staff will check whether contamination is visible or not. Tagging bins, but still emptying them, could take place for “a period of up to six months”, she added.
There will be “new stickers with pictures rather than words to actually clarify what should go into each bin”. “That should hopefully help with some of the language barriers that we have often got to deal with,” the official said.
Cllr Jill Pidgeon, Labour, said communication would be “really, really important”, particularly with elderly people who aren’t as comfortable using the council website. The council official said a range of methods would be used, including leaflets, social media and potentially adverts on bin lorries.
The new bins will take an expanded range of plastic as well as metal cans for food and drink. Provided to people with kerbside collections, they will be introduced over a nine to 12 month period, starting from April or May next year, if a bid to the Scottish Government’s recycling improvement fund is successful.
A similar service for flatted properties is being pencilled in for 2024. The changes are planned after research from the council and Zero Waste Scotland found around 50% of material in a blue recycling bin had not been targeted for collection as part of the dry, mixed waste stream that aims to capture paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and cans for food and drink.
Items that often wrongly appear in the blue bin include food waste, electrical items, textiles, healthcare waste and glass bottles as well as plastic bags.
Cllr Kelly added: “Many people who want to recycle have been understandably confused by why it’s okay to put certain types of plastic into their recycling bin, but not others. That’s ultimately been down to what the marketplace for recycling wants and what can be successfully reprocessed, but the processors are now catching up with what we throw away.”
He added: “Recycling properly means we can either earn income from the material we send to be recycled or at least it can be processed at a much cheaper rate than general waste.
“But if batches of recycling are contaminated, they can be rejected by our processors and that means that waste becomes more expensive to dispose of.”
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