Households may be forced to put out six separate rubbish bins due to new EU regulations, Britain’s biggest waste company has warned. Families will need to dispose of glass, paper, tin cans and plastic separately so they can be recycled without the risk of contamination, under the European rules coming into force in January, says a Telegraph report.
“The move could force councils to increase the number of bins outside every home to six, waste collection firm Veolia warned as it launched a campaign against “unnecessary bins”. The company is arguing that the sorting and division of waste materials can be done after collection, removing the need for more bins.”
A spokesman said: “From January 2015, EU rules mean households and businesses may need to separate their waste into six separate bins. Veolia thinks most of the sorting can be done post-collection and that four bins are more than enough.”
“However, the likely impact of the new EU Waste Framework Directive is still subject to debate with government officials claiming councils could avoid installing more bins if they could show this was not practical. They also suggested rubbish could be collected in fewer bins and separated by waste collectors on the pavement. But decisions over bin collections lie with local authorities, says the report.
Veolia insisted the new rules as “unnecessary” and “impractical” as modern technology allows waste material to be separated post-collection. More than two thirds of people do not wish to separate rubbish into more than four bins, according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the company. It found that 94 per cent of the 2,500 respondents agreed recycling was important but only 12 per cent considered having six or more bins reasonable.
Richard Kirkman, Veolia’s technical director, told the Daily Mail: “The public are very supportive of recycling, but we must make it easy for them. Some other groups and consultants are trying to push an environmental agenda that they don’t understand.
“They are pushing for everything to be separate… this will be completely impractical for people. We are just saying let’s be sensible, it needs to be easier for people, not harder.”