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A senior councillor has claimed “fraudulent activity” related to a waste disposal company was to blame for a fall in Caerphilly County Borough Council’s recycling rate.

The council’s recycling rate dropped from 65% in 2018/19 to 62.5%, failing to meet the Welsh Government target of 64%.

It was one of only four councils across Wales not to meet the new national target.

The council has previously said the reduction was related to the way a third-party waste company disposed of textile materials.

In response to a question from Councillor Kevin Etheridge, Cllr Nigel George, cabinet member for waste and public protection, said: “NRW (Natural Resources Wales) has undertaken a fraud investigation with the company involved.

“This waste could not be counted and subsequently led to a decline in our overall recycling performance of around 2%.

“This is obviously very disappointing because, if this material had been processed properly as we were led to believe, then we would have achieved our statuary target.

“The council is taking appropriate legal advice to address this matter and we are also working with Welsh Government so that they fully understand the reasons for our shortfall.”

In response to a further question on the issue, Cllr George said: “If it hadn’t been for the fraudulent activity of a processing company we would have still been among the best performers for recycling.”

Natural Resources Wales said that where councils claim waste has been recycled, they must have “supporting robust evidence”.

“In our monitoring role, we raised concerns with Caerphilly Council on the lack of evidence the council held to demonstrate that all of their reported textiles waste stream had been sent to recycling destinations,” an NRW spokesman said.

“The council made the decision to exclude a proportion of their textile materials from being reported as recycled where they did not hold supporting evidence that recycling had taken place during the 2019-20 scheme year.”

Cllr Etheridge said the council should have “rigorous monitoring” in place.

“We were among the top authorities for our recycling rate and now we have gone down to the bottom quartile,” he said.

“I hope in the future they will ensure regular checks and monitoring because recycling in Caerphilly County Borough is a priority and to see the rate reduce is concerning.”

Cllr George added: “I want to thank residents for their ongoing efforts and would like to assure everyone that we are taking all appropriate steps to ensure our waste disposal contracts are robust and monitored effectively to avoid any repeat of this type of incident in the future.”