The bags were rolled out in an effort to boost recycling — but now many are ending up as rubbish in the black bin themselves. The council has said that bags which are damaged should be taken to a recycling centre or put in your black bin. If the bag is undamaged or only faded, people are urged to keep using it and to store it out of direct sunlight if possible.
A replacement red bag can be ordered from the council website — but there is a catch. A notice on the council website warned: “Replacements are from the same batch, so it may also fade or break if left in the sun.”
The council advised people ordering replacement bags: “Try to store it out of direct sunlight if possible. Whilst you wait for your new bag to arrive, please use your existing recycling boxes and sort your recycling as best as you can. Please make sure that any glass bottles and jars are clearly visible for the crew.”
The 90 litre red bags are for recycling plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, and household metal packaging. A key benefit of ordering the bags was that they could be folded up and stored more conveniently than plastic boxes — but the fact that they would fade and fall apart if they were left out in the sun was unexpected.
The council originally ordered 6,000 red bags for a trial, before ordering more to roll them out across the whole district in March. The original bags have remained in “perfect condition” but many of the new bags have not.
Council cabinet member for planning and environment Annemieke Waite (Winford, Green) told a full council meeting on November 11: “There is a distinct problem with them. Some of the red bags are fading, some of the red bags are fading and failing. They are literally falling apart at the seams. So we are having extensive discussions with the supplier. We are not happy at all.”
The council is now talking to its supplier. Ms Waite said: “There is an ongoing discussion about how we are going to sort this out on a financial basis.”