4,431 tonnes of Warrington waste rejected for wrong bin use

More than 4,000 tonnes of recyclable material had to be refused from recycling plants in 2022 because the wrong bins were used, which contaminated the waste.

The total amount of waste rejected in Warrington in 2022 was 4,431 tonnes - which is the combined average weight of more than 2,200 cars.

Thousands of tonnes of recyclable material was rejected due to some incorrect items being placed in bins (Image: Canva)

This is also the largest amount of waste that the town has seen rejected since records began.

In total, the rejected waste accounted for 10 per cent of all waste sent for recycling in the town - which amounted to more than 44,000 tonnes in 2022.

The figures from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that 2022's total for rejected waste in Warrington had increased significantly from the year before.

In 2021, 2,516 tonnes of recyclable waste was rejected due to the improper use of bins - which means that the total rejected waste increased by more than 75 per cent in just one year.

Since records began in 2015/16, rejected waste has increased by nearly 600 per cent; from 656 tonnes to 4,431 tonnes.

Across England, 6.4 per cent of all recyclable material is rejected due to the incorrect use of bins - which makes Warrington worse for rejecting this material than the national average.

An LGA spokesperson said households have made a 'real shift' to ensure they are recycling as much as possible while councils work hard to share information on what can be recycled.

They said: “However, the manufacturers of plastic packaging products are still continuing to create and sell packaging that cannot be recycled and will be put in the recycling bin by people in good faith.

"The burden then falls on councils to not only collect it and dispose of it, but to pay the extra cost of disposing of it."

10 per cent of all recyclable waste in Warrington was rejected last year (Image: Canva)

In Warrington, 39,753 tonnes of household waste were recycled – 42.1 per cent of all rubbish; this is down from a recycling rate of 44.4 per cent in 2020/21.

A Defra spokesperson said it wants to recycle and reuse more waste, and support households to do so.

They said, “There was an increase in rejected material reported by local authorities in the wake of the pandemic but we have since set a suite of targets to reduce different types of waste, including plastic, glass, metal, paper and food by 2028 through our landmark Environmental Improvement Plan."