THE volume of household rubbish that is recycled in Lancashire could be doubled if every resident correctly separated their waste before binning it.

That is the message from the man responsible for dealing with more than 600,000 tonnes of material which is thrown out in the county every year.

William Maxwell, Lancashire County Council’s waste service development manager, is the man responsible for dealing with more than 600,000 tonnes of material that gets thrown out in the county every year.

And with plenty of papers, boxes – and possibly an empty bottle or two – lying around after all the festivities, he’s appealing to us all to go the extra mile before sticking them all in the bin.

He said: “Most people do it very conscientiously. Out of a street of 50 houses, there might be just one or two which don’t.

“But if the public were so conscientious that every single bit of recyclable material were pulled out of the general waste, that would bring us above the 50 percent recycling target which the government has set for local authorities next year.”

The county was already managing to recycle just over half of its rubbish back in 2015/16, but progress has since gone into reverse – and the figure for 2018/19 stood at 43.7 percent. Every council area except West Lancashire now has a lower recycling rate than it did five years ago.

But a tour of LCC’s Farington recycling plant reveals the two biggest roadblocks to a better recycling rate – the amount of recyclable material which is thrown into the general rubbish and the contamination of recyclable waste with unsuitable items.

Mr Maxwell estimates that around five per cent of Lancashire households are “super-recyclers”, with another five per cent not making any effort at all. The rest, he says, are all “doing their bit”.

However, the results – like the rubbish – are mixed.

“Our single biggest challenge is trying to persuade people not to put plastic bags, plastic film or bubble wrap in their recycling,” he says.

“They are all types of plastic which we are not able to deal with.

“People use plastic bags in their kitchens to put the recycling in, but then don’t tip the contents into the bin – they put the whole bag in.

“When it arrives here tightly wrapped in the bag, it can end up masking the recyclable stuff inside.

“Then there is bubble wrap, which is increasing because of the growth of online shopping and the fact so much of it is used for packaging, and plastic film off things like ready meals. All it does is make it more difficult for us to find recyclable material and gums up the machinery.

“We do pull some stuff apart manually, because we don’t want a big proportion of what the public have sorted to be ending up in landfill anyway.”

It is estimated that if every piece of rubbish was properly sorted prior to disposal, Lancashire could double the 109,000 tonnes of recyclable material that is collected from kerbsides every year.

The annual savings in the cost of sending rubbish unnecessarily to landfill could reach £2.6m.

Meanwhile, residents are being reminded that this is the first festive period when they will be able to recycle plastic pots, tubs and trays, after the common food packaging first began to be accepted in recycling bins back in October.

The region’s waste processing plants have undergone an overhaul to help them cope with the additional items.

And they will be put to the test as the influx of post-Christmas rubbish comes flooding in.

Caroline Melling, contracts manager at Lancashire Renewables, a joint venture between Lancashire County Council and Blackpool Council that deals with waste from every part of the county except Blackburn, said: “Just after Christmas is a very busy time for us.

“We see a lot more cardboard at this time of year and glass also increases significantly in January straight after new year.”

Mr Maxwell added: “We’re doing our best to make sure that we are trying to [extract] value from everything they have made an effort to recycle.

“But there is a hardcore minority of people who refuse to believe that we do anything with our waste other than just tip it all in the same hole in the ground.

“Nothing could be further from the truth.”

YOUR RECYCLING GUIDE

Waste service manager William Maxwell acknowledges that the rules on recycling can be confusing – not least for his own family.

“There are several bins in our kitchen – one of which is the ‘William will tell you’ bin,” he explains.

“My family put material in there that they’re not quite sure about – and every week I have a root around and see what should be going into the recycling what should be put in the residual [general] waste.”

But if you don’t have a William in your house, here is our guide to recycling – with some useful tips about the rubbish which is common at this time of year.

PLASTICS

Some plastic packaging bears numbers or letters in a small triangular logo. Lancashire currently recycles types one, two and five. Here are some examples of what can be recycled after being rinsed clean:

Type one (PET) – clear or coloured bottles of soft drink or toiletries and trays for some pre-packed food

Type two (HDPE) – softer plastic, likes supermarket milk bottles

Type five (PP) – tubs and pots which contain foods like margarine, yoghurt or sweets

The following plastics cannot currently be recycled in the county’s household waste:

Types three (PVC) and four (LDPE) – plastic film from ready meals and plastic carrier bags (although some supermarkets have bag-recycling facilities)

Type six (polystyrene) – a widely-used packaging material

Type seven (blended) – includes milk and juice cartons, which are complex mix of materials that are difficult to separate

Hard plastics – children’s toys and similar items should not be put in doorstep recycling but can be taken to Lancashire’s household waste recycling centres and presented to staff for examination

PAPER AND CARD

These are mostly recyclable – but wrapping paper with foil content or glitter is not.

Residents are asked to carry out a “scrunch test” – if the paper stays scrunched into a ball, it can be recycled. All cardboard should be flattened before being binned.

METAL

Rinsed aluminium and other metal food and drink cans, along with aerosol containers, can all be recycled.

Scrap metal should be taken to a household waste recycling centre.

FOOD WASTE

This is not currently collected in Lancashire, but the government is expected to legislate to make such collections mandatory.

LANCASHIRE RECYCLING LEAGUE

1.   Fylde – 44.7 per cent of rubbish recycled

2.   West Lancs – 43.8 per cent

3.   Chorley – 43.3 per cent

4.   Wyre – 43.2 per cent

5.   South Ribble – 42.7 per cent

6.   Blackpool – 39.6 per cent

7.   Lancaster – 36.5 per cent

8.   Hyndburn – 33.8 per cent

9.   Burnley – 32.5 per cent

10. Preston – 31.5 per cent

=   Rossendale – 31.5 per cent

12. Pendle – 31.3 per cent

13. Ribble Valley – 30.4 per cent

14. Blackburn with Darwen – 28.5 per cent