Thurrock Council has announced that it will remove residents’ recycling bins if they are repeatedly contaminated, as part of a new ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy that will take effect from next Monday (13 July).

According to the council, contamination (such as food waste contaminating paper waste, or incorrect materials being placed out for recycling) costs taxpayers ‘hundreds of thousands of pounds’, due to material being too dirty to recycle (and instead being sent to landfill).

As such, anyone who ‘refuses to recycle properly’ will be ‘penalised’ by having their blue co-mingled recycling bins removed.

How the system works

The council currently accepts the following materials for recycling every week:

• paper - newspapers, magazines, junk mail, envelopes, phone directories and catalogues;
• cardboard;
• metal food and drinks cans;
• aerosols;
• glass bottles and jars, but not any other types of glass;
• plastic bottles; andplastic food trays and yoghurt pots.

It notes that common contaminants include: plastic bags; food waste (there is a separate bin for food waste); tetra pak packaging and other cartons; plastic film; and light bulbs.

In the ‘three strike’ system, blue bins that are contaminated with ‘the wrong sort of material’ will be left unemptied and marked with a yellow tag, highlighting that the bin is contaminated. Residents will then be visited by council officers to discuss why the bin is contaminated, and outline what materials can be recycled.

If, after this first strike, the bin is contaminated for a second time the following week, waste operatives will place an amber tag on the bin, and the resident will receive another follow-up visit.

Any bins that are then put out for a third week with contaminants will receive a red tag, and an officer will come to the household to outline why the resident is still incorrectly recycling, and remove the bin.

'Putting part of everyone’s council tax payment in the bin'

Touching on the strike system, Councillor Gerard Rice, Cabinet Member for Environment at Thurrock Council, commented: ““The situation is so bad that we are now having to take drastic action after nearly a quarter of all recycling loads are being rejected because they’re contaminated by non-recyclable materials.

“Unfortunately one blue bin with the wrong materials in it can lead to a whole lorry-load – four tonnes worth – being rejected. On one lay last month, four out of seven loads were rejected and each of those costs us £120 instead of £15.

“Effectively it means one thoughtless person’s actions is putting part of everyone’s council tax payment in the bin – and it’s happening too often.”

“From next month we will be using tags on the bins and after three – each followed up by a personal visit – the blue bin will be removed. That will be it. No recycling at all from that home. If the householder changes their mind they will have to pay for the new bin, it is not an excessive amount, but they will have to pay.

“It just isn’t fair on everybody who recycles properly that they have to pay for this thoughtlessness. It costs us, the council tax-paying people of Thurrock, thousands of pounds a week and hundreds of thousands of pounds a year – that’s hundreds of thousands that could be spent elsewhere on cleaning our streets or more social workers for example.”

Rice suggested that residents should focus on “making sure their recycling is done properly [and] make it clear to their neighbours that receive yellow, amber and even red tags that what they’re doing is unacceptable”.

Resource has asked the council how it thinks this policy with affect the local recycling rate (currently sitting at around 49 per cent), but has not yet received a response.

The council is advising all residents to check the local authority website to learn which items can be placed out for recycling, and which items are not accepted.

Rice added: “We, the council, want a tidy and good-looking borough; we at Thurrock Council do not want to use your money to pay unnecessarily for waste to be taken away; and we certainly do not want to see the efforts of the vast majority of local people wasted by the thoughtless actions of a few.”

Find out more about recycling at Thurrock Council.