Labour slams delay to cardboard recycling scheme

New measures to improve cardboard recycling in South Gloucestershire have been delayed until September.

Plans by South Gloucestershire Council to provide residents with a new bag for recycling cardboard were due to come into effect during the summer. This followed a huge number of complaints from residents after the council changed the way in which cardboard was collected. Previously residents were able to put cardboard into their green bins along with garden waste but the council changed this in October last year. Instead residents were asked to leave cardboard at the side of the bin.  This prompted many complaints as bad weather saw cardboard being blown around streets and left in soggy piles after rain.

However, councillors have now been told that due to a quality issue with the first batch of bags, the new bags will not be available until around the end of September.

Labour councillor Pat Rooney, who chairs the council committee which monitors waste, said she was really disappointed.

Councillor Rooney (Labour, Woodstock) said;

"I am really not at all happy with this delay.  It was a bad decision in the first place to ask for cardboard to be left out exposed to the elements and to hear now that residents will have to wait even longer just makes things even worse."