Are we green in a bin strike?

This is where your recycling may end awaiting sorting

With erratic collections of rubbish due to the bin strike dominating the headlines, has recycling dropped off the agenda?

Leeds City Council have recruited new staff to restart collections of the city's green recycling bins.

They are confident that contamination of the contents will not be a large problem.

But with black bin bags lining the streets we ask, is there anything worth saving in those overflowing green bins?

Matt lives in a shared house in Armley with five other people. The front yard is full of plants and washing blowing in the breeze, the bins are on the pavements outside. Matt says he can't be bothered to recycle any more: "Our green bin was full within two weeks of the bin strike starting.

"The lid doesn't close and now paper blows down the street. No one is recycling round here. The bins haven't been emptied for at least a month, they're all out on the pavements, the place is a mess.

Rubbish is piling up in some streets

"We haven't contaminated our green bin but we haven't carried on recycling. There is nowhere to put recycling. I don't know if you can take mixed recycling to the tip? How would we get it there? The whole situation is ridiculous."

Household recycling in the UK has been slow to take off compared to other European countries. However, under new pressure from national targets, local council recycling rates are increasing. The amount of waste sent to landfill last year by English councils decreased by 1.2 million tonnes.

Despite this increase, in the UK only 37 per cent of household rubbish is recycled by local councils, this compares with the Netherlands which recycles 65 per cent of its waste, followed by Sweden with 42 per cent and Denmark with 41 per cent.

Dom lives in a housing co-op in Chapeltown and says the bin strike is a good opportunity for us to re-evaluate the way we live: "Living in a housing co-operative we aim to live a low impact, sustainable lifestyle. We produce very little waste so neither our recycling or our black bin waste has ever really built up.

"If our recycling bin was full we wouldn't add it to our black bin. None of us have a car but we do have access to a community van we can pay to hire. We would hire that and take it to the recycling centre at Meanwood before we put it in landfill.

Recycling green bins are to be emptied fortnightly

"It is important to recycle but the most important thing is to reduce the amount of waste we produce in the first place. We do this through not buying excess packaging and buying in bulk. If you buy fresh fruit and vegetables locally they won't need packaging, maybe just a brown paper bag you can add to your compost."

Across the city in Burley lives Caroline and her partner Ash. She says the bins are all out on the streets but the area doesn't look too bad: "We have been to the tip three or four times since the strike began. We keep our recycling separate and then take it down.

"It isn't a major problem to take it down to Kirkstall Road but that's only because we have transport. I don't think we do enough to recycle as a city so it's important to me that we do our bit. There are lots of different types of plastic we can't recycle. Then there's glass you have to take to collection points. I think if the Council want people to recycle more they need to make it easier."

Making recycling easier is something Leeds City Council may need to think about after the bin strike. If more residents don't start recycling soon, the increased cost of waste disposal, including the national landfill tax, is going to cause a shortfall in next year's budget.