Guernsey's main recycling centre at Longue Hougue has started to accept rigid plastics on a trial basis to boost the island’s recycling rates and reduce the amount of waste sent to its landfill site at Mont Cuet.

Hard plastics such as buckets, washing up bowls and garden furniture will now be accepted for recycling at the centre, but heavily contaminated items, such as paint pots and plastic film will not.

Public Services Deputy Minister, Scott Ogier, introduced the new rigid plastics area at the centre saying that, if successful, the trials could help the island reach its 70 per cent recycling target: "Rigid plastics are often bulky items, so this will have a double benefit of increasing recycling and saving significant space at Mont Cuet. It will also hopefully enable more reuse."

Unwanted rigid plastic items that are still in good order can be left in a new, covered area for reuse. Installed earlier this month, the covered area was set up at the recycling centre to protect unwanted items from the elements.

Public Services Recycling Officer, Tina Norman-Ross, said good-quality items tend to be taken from the site fairly quickly: "We want good-quality items to find a new home, but having them left out in all weathers was not ideal. That is something we have wanted to address, and as part of the new waste strategy we will be looking to develop a more permanent reuse and repair centre… The covered area now provides storage for items such as wooden furniture and doors, and electrical items. Hopefully it will mean more goods being reused."

In 2011 alone, over 10,000 disclaimers were signed for items that were taken away for reuse, including bicycles and old flowerpots.

Norman-Ross went on to say that the department could only provide facilities for collecting items for which there was currently a market for the recycled material. "We all want to recycle as much as possible but the market for recycled plastics is for specific types, and in particular high-quality material.

"We see a lot of items going into the bring banks that should not be there. We often get carrier bags and coal sacks, but occasionally items such as pool covers, toilet seats and drain pipes.

"This contamination can affect the price a processor will pay, and could even mean a whole batch being rejected by the processing plant and not recycled. Obviously we want to avoid that."

Rigid plastics that are in poor condition can be left for recycling, where they will be shredded locally before being recycled into new products at UK processors.

Last year over 62,000 vehicles visited the site, which opened in 2008, and together dropped off over 1,000 tonnes of unwanted materials for recycling (after weeding out anything that could be reused).