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Nineteen residents have been fined for persistent recycling offences in Caerphilly County Borough since February.

In a bid to improve its recycling rates to avoid Welsh Government fines, Caerphilly County Borough Council’s cabinet earlier this year agreed to take action against those who repeatedly put the wrong type of material into their recycling bins.

These measures include an education and engagement process which includes letters, home visits and the option to serve legal notice on persistent offenders of kerbside recycling contamination.

The council has said that, currently, there are “high levels of contamination” within the borough’s brown recycling bins – with almost a quarter of all material collected at the kerbside for recycling not able to be processed as recycling.

Cllr Chris Morgan, council cabinet member for waste said: “Whilst fining our residents for not recycling correctly is not a step that we as a council wanted to take, it is something we felt was necessary in the few cases where residents are persistently contaminating their recycling by putting things in the wrong bins -despite further engagement and education directly with them.”

He continued: “It is important to note that fixed penalty notices are issued as a last resort, to residents who have been contacted multiple times with regards to the content of their bins.   

“We are hopeful that this new process will work as a deterrent to residents who are knowingly using their recycling bins incorrectly and diminishing the work of those residents who are consistently doing the right thing.”