An award-winning campaign to improve recycling rates in Perth and Kinross - which received a hostile response from some residents - has been expanded.
The council Waste Services team’s ‘Stick to the Six’ campaign will now include households in Braco, Greenloaning, Auchterarder and Crieff.
Locals are now being urged to double check they are only recycling their paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, plastic containers, cartons, cans and tins in their blue bins.
PKC says there has been a “considerable decrease in contamination” in the Blairgowrie, Rattray, Alyth and Coupar Angus area over the last few months, thanks to the scheme.
As a result, the campaign is being extended this month to the council wards of Strathearn and Strathallan.
Last month ‘Stick to the Six’ clinched the silver award at the APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) Striving for Excellence Awards in the waste and recycling category.
The campaign explains that paper, cardboard, plastic bottles and containers, cans/tins, and cartons are the only items accepted in household blue bins.
All households eligible for kerbside waste collection received leafleted information detailing what types of waste to keep out of their blue bins, as well as targeted checks and intervention on the ground by staff.
Vice convener of the environment, infrastructure and economic development committee, Bailie Mike Williamson explained: “The clean, dry recycling which is collected in kerbside blue bins across Perth and Kinross is recycled and remanufactured into new items – and this reduces the need to mine, transport and manufacture raw materials from the planet, which helps to reduce our community’s impact on climate change.
“Because everyone’s recycling is needed to make new items, we need to keep the amount of contamination as low as possible.
“Please take time to visit www.pkc.gov.uk/sticktothesix or the attended and unattended information stalls that are in place in locations around Strathearn and Strathallan over the coming weeks to check that your household is separating, rinsing and recycling only the items that we can collect in the blue bins.”
Where the contents failed, the “contaminated” bins were left unemptied at the kerbside with red failure notices stuck on the lid urging householders to separate their recycling waste more carefully next time.
The scheme was negatively scrutinised by many Perth residents towards the end of last year as a result.
In October the PA spoke to one Perth pensioner who blasted PKC for leaving him with two full recycling bins for over two weeks.
The following month residents on Ballantine Place, Perth even had their blue-lidded bins removed by the council after ‘contaminating’ them with the wrong rubbish.
The roadshow of information stalls will complement a social media campaign, with the details being shared widely amongst local community groups.
The council’s Waste Services Team will then accompany the bin crews on blue bin day to provide support and guidance for residents who have contamination in their kerbside blue bin.
