'Why are binmen putting our recycling sacks in with the black sacks?' asks Milton Keynes resident

MK City Council has admitted its waste collection system is “not foolproof” after a complaint that recycling sacks are being thrown in with black sacks in bin lorries.

A resident in Bletchley’s Thirlmere Avenue told the Citizen: “ Every week when when our rubbish is collected, the recycling bags go into the back of the cart with the black bags. So our recycling bags end up in a landfill site and not a recycling unit.”

He added: “If this is going on in our street how many other streets are there having this problem? This has been going on for months now.”

A spokesman for MK City Council said: “While no system is completely foolproof, we monitor incoming collections and run spot checks so residents can be confident that the vast majority of their waste and recycling is collected as it should be.”

Much of the problem could be that residents are “contaminating” their clear sacks by putting in items that cannot be recycled, such as crisp packets or nappies.

The spokesman said: “If our crews spot non-recyclable rubbish (including recyclable material that has food waste on it, nappies etc) then they are told to collect it as black sack waste to avoid it contaminating other recycling.

"Contaminated waste can’t be recycled and costs us hundreds of thousands of pounds every year to process. Based on our regular sampling of materials, around a third of the recycling collected in this resident’s postcode and surrounding area last month was contaminated.

The spokesman said Milton Keynes was “exceptional” as less than 5% of its waste goes to landfill.

“We aim to send no rubbish in MK to landfill, and our state of the art processing plant actually creates energy from black sack waste so even contaminated waste isn’t ‘wasted’. Introducing wheelie bins and new vehicles next year will make our system even more efficient."

Each MK household will get four wheelie bins in 2023. There will be a green-lidded one for food and garden waste, a blue-lidded one for plastic, metals and glass, a red-lidded one for paper and card, and a bin with a grey lid for residual waste.