WEST FIFERS have been urged to keep using recycling centres despite a claims binmen were putting all waste into the same lorry.

One Press reader was angry after seeing one council vehicle clear a recycling point at Asda Halbeath then put rubbish from bins destined for landfill into the same load.

He said: "I observed a bin lorry at the Asda recycling point in Halbeath Road where cans and plastics were being put into the same truck. I asked the bin man why this was and he advised me that this comes under the term DMR, Dry Mixed Recycling, which I, at that point, accepted.

"Then, only about 15 minutes later, I saw the same truck with the same bin man at another premises, this time putting a purple bin onto the truck, purple which is for business landfill. At that point, I again asked why this was going into same truck, when I was astounded to hear what the bin man then said to me: "Ask management we only do as we are told".

"Come on Fife Council: that is 100 per cent not acceptable. So, in my view, for all those who went out their way to recycle all Christmas packaging and drive to a recycling point, it was a waste of time literally as it ended up in landfill."

Fife Council told the Press that on this occasion, the vehicle had to switch from collecting recyclates to landfill.

Sandy Anderson, service manager for waste operations, said cans, plastics, paper and cardboard could all be collected from recycling points together as 'dry mixed recyclate'. This is a recent change that applies to recycling points but not household waste collected from the kerbside.

"In this case at Asda Halbeath, our crew discovered a high level of contamination and illegal dumping at the recycling point," he said. "This meant that, despite the best efforts of the majority of users, the waste was collected as landfill rather than dry mixed recyclate. They then moved on to empty other landfill bins in the area to fill their vehicle before returning back to the recycling centre.

"Sadly, it doesn't take much contamination from a small majority to spoil the efforts of everyone else. Fortunately, cases such as this are rare and we urge everyone in Fife to continue to use the large network of recycling points that we have in place."