We don't want to waste your recycled rubbish

While many households are recycling responsibly, there are too many occasions when bins are being contaminated with rogue items of rubbish.

Councillor John Wincott, the council’s sustainability champion, said: “I want to thank residents for helping us to divert over 56 per cent of their waste from landfill in 2015.

“Fife Council is one of the best performing local authorities in Scotland, and this is mostly down to the efforts of our residents.

“But we cannot be complacent, and want to encourage people to recycle the right materials in the right bins.

“We appreciate most Fifers are making a good effort to dispose of their rubbish in the right way, but there is still room for improvement when it comes to contamination – in other words, waste being put in the wrong bin.

“Contamination can lead to a load being rejected and then sent to landfill or, in the worst cases, it also means some bins are being left behind unemptied.”

Common rogue items in recycling bins include bagged recycling, electrical items and toys in green bins intended for cans and plastics; polystrene and plastic wrappings in the grey bins for paper and cardboard; and animal waste, sawdust and pet bedding in the brown bins for food and garden waste.

Cllr Wincott added: “The cost of landfilling waste has increased significantly in recent years, so it makes economic as well as environmental sense to separate and recycle your waste.

“By making sure the right waste goes into the right bin, we can recycle even more, reducing the amount of rubbish that ends up in landfill sites.”

For a list of what goes into recycling bins in Fife, or to find out more, visit www.fifedirect.org.uk/4bins or call the Recycling Helpline on 03451 55 00 22.