Households risk not having glass collected unless in official bags

The comments come following online reports of people not having their glass waste collected after putting it out in carrier bags and other containers.

Waste minimisation and sustainability officer Douglas Button said the problem has come about when the original bags are lost or damaged.

While some people pick up a replacement, others resort to more ad-hoc solutions.

‘More often than not, the alternative has been to use carrier bags, which are a problem,’ he said.

As well as not being as strong as the reusable bags and prone to splitting and thus rising breakages and possibly someone being injured, they also blow around if left behind after emptying.

‘Generally they have ended up going in the back of the truck, along with the glass, and we can’t then remove them because retrieving bits of plastic from a large pile of broken glass has obvious issues,’ said Mr Button.

‘With all recycling quality is important to ensure we get best value and don’t get materials being rejected. So we need to avoid this sort of contamination and we are concerned that if we don’t do anything, it will only get worse.’

Guernsey Waste has reminded collection companies to leave behind glass left in plastic bags.

‘It is genuinely not to make things harder for anybody, we just have to address the issue,’ he said.

While other plastic containers are also sometimes used, these often have drawbacks such as not having the high handles of the reusable bags, which means the collectors have to bend down further to pick them up.

‘That may not sound the end of the world, but they are having to pick up literally hundreds of containers each night. Anything we can do to make their task easier helps and anything that slows down collections ends up costing more.’

He also reminded people to write their house name clearly on the glass bag and food caddy so they can be returned if they do blow away.

n Anyone who needs a new glass bag can collect one for free from the Household Waste & Recycling Centre at Longue Hougue, or from their parish constables’ office.