A SHINFIELD resident was left exasperated after she watched footage of refuse collectors emptying the contents of her recycling into her general waste bin bag.
Lorraine Smith noticed through video captured by her doorbell camera that her green food waste bags had been emptied into her blue bin bags for “a few weeks”.
It was picked up by Cllr Pauline Jorgensen who informed Wokingham Today that waste management company Veolia had investigated the incident and found that the refuse collectors had “made a mistake” and been spoken to to ensure it did not happen again.
Ms Smith explained: “I was really upset and disheartened when I watched the video footage of the man opening my blue bag and then placing the green food waste into the blue. When they reached the lorry they didn’t take it out, they just placed it into the same one.
“If the bin men can’t be bothered to do their job correctly it puts me off taking the time to recycle.
“A few neighbours have stopped because they too have witnessed the bags being put together, and a lot of other people in the Shinfield Community Group [on Facebook] have witnessed the bags being mixed into one.
“I am trying my best by recycling to help our planet and future generations.”
Wokingham Borough Council has voiced its commitment to throw away less and recycle more, urging its residents to only use blue bin bags for household rubbish which can’t be recycled or disposed of as food waste.
Last month, leader of the council Cllr Steven Conway, said: “Our last study showed that over half of what people throw away in a typical blue bag could have been recycled, with food waste being the biggest culprit.
“If everyone put out all their recyclable materials, including food waste, for recycling, we could save over £1 million a year as it costs more to send this to landfill.”
A spokesperson for Veolia and Wokingham Borough Council said: “The innovative design of our collection vehicles allows for all material streams, including food, to be collected at the same time in separate compartments. All our crews are trained so that contamination between streams is avoided.
“Mistakes do unfortunately happen sometimes, and we are aware of an incident recently where one of our crews put food waste in with blue bag waste. We would like to apologise for this. We know residents work hard to take the time to separate their waste to help us be the best at recycling that we can be.
“We are fully committed to recycling in the borough to reduce waste and help the environment. The incident has been investigated and robust action has been taken. We will be increasing the number of random checks on operations as a result of this complaint to make sure that as far as possible we prevent further recurrences.”
