A trial which would have seen overloaded North Lanarkshire bins not being emptied has been postponed.
The local authority instead will take part in a separate electronic tagging initiative to monitor recycling.
Councillors had given the go-ahead in February for a three-month pilot project to address the problem of bins being too full to be collected safely; first by offering recycling help or additional capacity, and then by not collecting rubbish in cases of repeat incidences.
However, it was originally delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, and has now been put back further as North Lanarkshire pursues a new partnership with Zero Waste Scotland to place radio frequency ID devices on the bins of 5000 households to track and improve recycling levels.
Environment convener Michael McPake said of the overloaded bins plan: “That went on hold because of Covid, for the simple reason that a lot more people were using their bins more [during lockdown and with recycling centres closed].
“We didn’t want to put any more pressure on people, so that went on hold; and now we have the smart tags trial with 5000 homes across the authority.
“It will give us data, and the hope is that we can get to a recycling target of 60 per cent; we’re stuck at recycling levels of around 46-48 per cent and would love to get higher than that.”
He added of the original plan – where bins presented with “lids in near-vertical positions” would have been tagged and ultimately not emptied “will start again at another time.”
February’s report on tackling “properties who continually present overloaded residual bins”, for non-recyclable waste which cannot be placed into the paper, food and garden, or glass, metal and plastic containers, had noted: “Bins in such a condition are not capable of being collected safely and bags have to be removed before being emptied.
Councillor McPake added: “Bins which are overloaded can be dangerous for operators.
“It’s to try and educate that bit further on recycling.”
