CONCERNED residents are calling for an overhaul of recycling in a bid to tackle the impact of plastic on the planet.

Environmentally-aware residents have hit out at the current level of recycling carried out by Tendring Council in the wake of plans to introduce wheelie bins and fortnightly rubbish collections to the district next year.

At the moment residents have a green box for plastic bottles and tins and a red box for paper and cardboard.

There are also food caddies for food waste and residents can pay extra for garden waste collections.

But residents say other councils such as Colchester and Ipswich do more.

Among them is Sandra Carter, of Main Road, Dovercourt, who said: “I’m fed up with throwing plastic that can be recycled in the bin, I want to know why they are not recycling it “My main gripe is plastics, we don’t recycle nearly enough.

“I get especially frustrated sending plastic items off to landfill when the the packaging says it can be recycled, it’s ridiculous.

“I did stop recycling when they introduced the last change, because I couldn’t see the sense in recycling much less plastic.

“But I have recently started again hoping they might have got their act together, but sadly not.

“Also our community recycling centre is far too small for the area it covers and also has no provision for plastics. Considering it is becoming more and more apparent the damage plastic is causing in this world, you would think their would be a facility to recycle it.”

Residents have hit out at recycling on Facebook.

Jon Nettleton said: “There’s a significant amount of plastic waste in our bins, most of which would be collected in Colchester.”

Abi Goodwin of Harwich said she is concerned about where bins will be stored and about a rise in flytipping.

She said: “In principle I have no objection to a fortnightly collection as we recycle anything possible - I could recycle more if Tendring Council took more sorts of plastic like other councils.

“My concern is there will be a rise in flytipping as other folk don’t recycle at all and will have more rubbish building up.

“For those of us with no front garden whose front door is right on the path and live in terraced housing with no back way and do not want that huge bin stuck in the living room there is simply nowhere to put it.”

Michael Talbot, portfolio holder for environment at Tendring Council, said there were a range of factors at play.

“There is a cost consideration to be made here – the more things that are recycled, and that are recycled together, the higher the cost in terms of sorting and separating out different types of plastics, including those that cannot, in fact, be recycled at all,” he said.

“On a wider, international scale, there is also the issue of where plastics go to be recycled, and we are increasingly seeing other local authorities having difficulty selling on their plastics.

“Environmentally, national media have recently highlighted cases of so-called recycled material being shipped to China and Poland and not being recycled at all.

“All of these things combined mean we take a prudent approach to what we collect for recycling here in Tendring.

“We would also ask that while we do what we can for the environment, that everyone also takes some responsibility themselves to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill, re-using materials where possible, and take steps such as make purchasing decisions which consider how much unnecessary packaging their product comes with.”

A four-week consultation into the proposed changes has been launched and any changes will not be introduced until the summer of 2019.

To have your say as part of the consultation, go to tendringdc.gov.uk/rubbish-and-recycling/proposed-new-waste-service.