Council workers have outraged residents by slapping ‘tags of shame’ on their bins in what bosses say is a new initiative to ‘re-educate’ families about recycling.
The row over collections by South Kesteven Council in Lincolnshire has already been branded the ‘bingate’ scandal by leading Tory Michael Gove who demanded an official apology to locals over the fiasco.
People living in the area say the new multi-bin system is too complicated and claim they are running out of room in their gardens after being issued with three separate bins for different types of waste.
As well as the standard black wheelie bin for house-hold waste, households also have a purple bin reserved for paper and cardboard and a silver bin for plastic bottles, glass bottles and foil.
From the start of this week, residents who had failed to fill the two recycling bins with the correct contents were stunned to find bin crews had tied warning labels to their uncollected waste.
The scheme has caused uproar in the community and has been labelled as ‘petty’ by furious locals on social media.
Refuse collectors outraged have slapped ‘tags of shame’ on residents bins in South Kesteven in what bosses say is a new initiative to ‘re-educate’ families about recycling
The tagging scheme has caused uproar in the community and has been labelled as ‘petty’ by furious locals on social media
Steve Hall, a resident in the South Kesteven district, said: ‘If your bin should be rejected, as mine was today through no fault of mine but a lovely passer by putting the wrong rubbish into my bin, then my recyclable items will now go in the black bin, thereby reducing the amount that is recycled and ensuring that the council don’t hit their recycling targets.
‘All it took was to lift out the paper bag of used food wrappings. You’d already opened the bin lid, so you were half way there. Too many jobsworths. What happened to a decent work ethic and common sense? I despair.’
Social media exploded with complaints about the tags with some residents threatening to boycott the recycling scheme entirely and just shove all their rubbish in the black bins.
Natalie Thompson posted on Facebook: ‘I got a tag of shame… for recycling carrier bags and white bin liners, which were full of recycling. The tag advised that bags were non-recyclable and not able to be processed. It is contradictory because the council give out bags you can buy for extra recycling.’
Paul Cassata joked: ‘They tagged our bin without even opening it – gotta get me some of the x-ray glasses they’ve kitted out the refuse collectors with!’
Claire Hadlow added: ‘I put my cardboard bin out for the first time the night before collection. Next day a tag appeared on it saying it was contaminated. Someone had dropped a disposable nappy on top of it. I’ve left it there and won’t use it again. It has been sat outside with two others – both tagged – for the last couple of months.’
The multi-bin system was first introduced at the start of February this year along with the tags to educate people about how to dispose of their waste correctly.
Statistics revealed that approximately 7,000 incorrectly-filled silver recycling bins were not collected in South Kesteven on February 19 and Fe