EDUCATION is the key to improved recycling rates and to avoid paying out thousands more pounds in penalty fees, Craven councillors have agreed.

Over the last three years, the council has failed to hit its 50 per cent recycling targets. It has also paid out £30,000 in penalties after more than 10 percent of recycling was contaminated by the wrong type of waste being put into blue bins.

In 2019/20 just 38. 87 percent of waste was recycled and the council paid a £16,000 penalty with contamination at 10.94 percent.

In 2020/21 pandemic year, 39.90 percent of waste was recycled, but 11.85 was contaminated, resulting in the council paying out a £14,000 penalty. It is close to crossing the trigger point again this year.

Most commonly, people put their recyclables into black bin liners before then putting it into their blue bins, heard a meeting of Craven District Council.

Other ‘wrong items’ put into recycling leading to the whole bin being ‘contaminated’ and scrapped are cling film and plastic toys.

Members of the council’s policy committee agreed on Tuesday a dedicated waste education officer going into schools would be a good idea, but asked for costings before going ahead.

Others however said it was not just educating children, so they could pass it onto parents and grandparents, but adults too who needed teaching.

A report to committee said a waste audit at Halton East tipping site in June, 2020, showed carrier bags and black refuse sacks were a common contaminant. Since then, overall tonnage and contamination rates had increased with more people working from home.

A waste education programme including seasonal campaigns, newsletters and taking part in recycling week, was recommended with the cost expected at ‘significantly less’ than the additional charges paid out by the council in the last two years.

A dedicated officer was not thought necessary and an ‘expensive option’ , but Councillor Carl Lis, lead member for greener craven disagreed.

A dedicated officer would be invaluable he said at getting the message across - Craven needed to ‘step up a gear’.

Cllr Simon Myers agreed, saying the brake needed to be put on climate change.

“When I speak to people about recycling quite often the issue about contamination is simple. It can be just explaining to people they can’t put rubbish in a black bin liner first. I don’t think people don’t want to do it, they just don’t understand," he said.

Cllr Andy Solloway said it was also about educating people about avoiding over packaged items.

"We've seen that residual waste has gone up. There needs to be education about not buying over packaged stuff. So much is over packaged, and we saw it in the pandemic when bins were full to overflowing," he said.