One person had time to grab their camera and took this image of a brown and a green bin being emptied into the vehicle.

And residents claim the practice has now been going on in Plymouth, Devon, for six weeks.

What a waste: Council workers look on as the two bins are emptied into the back of the same lorry

One man, who did not want to be named, said residents decided to take action after they complained to the council and received no response.

He said: ‘They just come along and get both bins and put them in the same truck. We wash our bottles and tins and we want them to be recycled.

‘It’s a waste of time if they are putting them in the same truck as the unrecyclable waste.

‘We saw it happen for the first time and thought it was a one-off, but now we have seen it again and again.’

The pictures were taken as the contracted refuse workers did their round in a service lane behind residents’ houses on Wednesday morning.

Those living on the street say they all adhere to the council’s recycling policy and are upset because they want to see the recyclable material kept separate.

They claim the same thing had happened on the past three green-and-brown bin collections, despite making complaints to the Plymouth City Council.

A female resident, who also asked to remain anonymous, took pictures of the incident and described what she saw as ‘terrible’.

She said: ‘I have always washed and separated out all my recyclable waste, but I’m not going to recycle any more until I am sure that the council is recycling it properly.’

She added that the council might say it was difficult to get lorries through – but if they could get one lorry through, they could get both a waste wagon and a recycling lorry in, she argued.

Plymouth City Council said that a ‘significant proportion’ of the green bins in the service lane had been contaminated with non-recyclable waste.

Therefore, in line with council policy, they were reclassified as ‘unrecyclable’ and emptied into a ‘brown’ refuse truck, a spokesman said.

‘A significant proportion of the green bins had also been “contaminated” with non-recyclable waste, so they were emptied into the same truck,’ he said.

‘Vehicles have been blocking access for our refuse and recycling trucks and we have had problems emptying the bins in this road for a number of weeks.

‘This meant there was a considerable build-up of rubbish and we received several complaints from residents that green and brown bins were overflowing.

‘Access was still blocked on Wednesday so we sent a crew in a smaller lorry to clear the rubbish as quickly as possible.

‘We can assure residents that they can keep up their excellent recycling efforts safe in the knowledge that it is all contributing to reducing landfill and creating a cleaner environment.’

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