RECYCLING bins could be removed from two major car parks in Henley because they are being misused.

Non-recyclable rubbish is being put in the bins in King’s Road and Greys Road car parks, so all the waste has to be sent to landfill.

Now South Oxfordshire District Council is considering removing the bins.

Town and district councillor Joan Bland blamed residents and market traders.

Speaking at a meeting of Henley Town Council, she said: “We need the people of Henley to stop abusing these bins otherwise they will be taken away.


“They are not just putting recycling in the bins, it is a mixture of rubbish and so it is contaminated. Recycling is hand-picked and you can’t expect people to hand-pick through nasty things. The market traders leave their rubbish there — I have seen them do it. They leave boxes that are not even folded up.”

Mayor Elizabeth Hodgkin said the district council had already removed the recycling bins from its car parks in Didcot to see what effect it had and wanted to do the same in Henley.

“People might be quite shocked by that sort of solution,” she said. “I will look at Didcot with great interest.”

District councillor William Hall defended residents, saying they had helped South Oxfordshire record a recycling rate of 67.92 per cent, the second highest rate in the country. These high figures are also down to residents buying into this and acting on it,” he said.

Councillor Ian Reissmann asked him if the council hoped to increase this figure, adding: “Holland only puts one per cent into landfill.”

Cllr Hall said he didn’t know but said: “I am sure they will keep working harder and harder.”

Derek Whittingham, of New Street, raised the issue of rubbish. Speaking from the public gallery, he said: “Every time I drive round there seems to be a pile of rubbish at the bottom of Market Place. I am not saying it is there every day but it is there most days and grows in the evening.

“It seems to me that in a market town it is the wrong thing to do. ‘You don’t drop rubbish’, my mother used to tell me, ‘you put it away’.

“I would suggest that the town manager might want to have a look at this.”

Cllr Hodgkin said there were several commercial companies picking up waste at different times and the rubbish did seem to pile up in Market Place.

She said the town had been “grappling” with the problem for years but she would raise it with town centre manager Peter McConnell.

lThe average rate for recycling by UK local authorities last year was 43 per cent, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

Published 10/12/12