RENFREWSHIRE Council has been urged to take tough action over ‘contaminated’ recycling bins.

In February, environment crews started checking blue bins for anything that wasn’t paper or cardboard in a bid to make recycling cheaper and more effective.

If a bin was found to contain the wrong items, it was given a red tag which stated it would not be collected until these were removed.

Residents then had two days to contact the council to advise it had been cleared before staff came out again to collect the bin.

However, Councillor James MacLaren, who represents Bishopton, Bridge of Weir and Langbank, has said bins are being left to overflow if found to be contaminated.

The Tory man also questioned why bins were no longer being tagged if they had the wrong type of garbage dumped in them.

Gavin Hutton, the council’s operations and infrastructure boss, admitted the system had been put to one side due to the coronavirus crisis, although it is still being done on a “small scale” in some areas.

Councillor MacLaren said: “I’m very disappointed with wheelie bins being left at the side of the road on pavements, often overflowing with rubbish.

“It seems as though, if the recycling bin is contaminated, then it is ignored forever more.

“What happened to the plans we had for tagging contaminated bins and removing those which are regular offenders of this?”

Mr Hutton said he would be happy to hear about any “problematic” streets.

He added: “We were implementing a process where we were going to be monitoring and tagging the recycling bins to improve the quality of recycling.

“That, along with many other things, has taken a back seat due to Covid-19.

“In relation to the collection of contaminated bins, we don’t collect them at the time because it contaminates the other material in the vehicle and we need to come back and collect it with a different vehicle, so there can be a time lag between that.”