THE levels of contaminated recycling - and the huge cost to Bradford Council - have been revealed in a new report.

The Council’s Regeneration and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee will meet next Tuesday to discuss the budget pressures faced and the measures planned to address the issue.

The report says that contamination levels of kerbside collected recycling “were much higher than anticipated at 38 per cent”.

In Bradford, 3,095 enforcement notices for contamination of recycling bins have been issued and 515 in Keighley.

None have yet moved to stage two, which consists of another warning letter.

The report says residents “inadvertently” contaminate recyclates, but there is also “what appears to be deliberate use of the recycling bin for the deposit of hidden residual waste”.

The “significant levels of contamination” have had a negative impact on the speed of the Materials Recycling Facility (MRF), which is located at the existing Bowling Back Lane site.

The MRF, through a mix of mechanical and manual picking, separates out recyclates and contamination to produce mixed glass, cardboard, mixed papers, steel tins/cans, alloy tins/cans and mixed plastics, which are then sold to recycling merchants.

The report says the MRF has been “unable to process all the district’s recyclates”, requiring an additional shift and the use of a third-party outlet.

To help speed up the capacity of the MRF, the Council entered a procurement process for a specialist piece of machinery called a trommel at the end of 2017.

It was due to be operational by this month, but “the contractor has been

unable to deliver within the terms of the contract and it will not now be in place this financial year”.

The report also says a rise in new properties across the district creates challenges - resulting in increasing levels of residual waste and recyclates - creating the need for additional refuse collection rounds.

It sets out a £900,000 shortfall in projected savings in 2017/18 and 2018/19 of refuse collection rounds following the introduction of AWC, plus unbudgeted costs of £550,000 due to the trommel not being in place.

An unbudgeted £1.2 million cost is outlined as a result of overall residual waste running at higher than predicted levels - made up of increases at Household Waste Recycling Centres and contaminated recycling bins - as well as £350,000 which will not be achieved due to income from recyclates sales lower than budgeted due to global pressures on recycling markets.

A number of measures have been identified to reduce residual waste, increase recycling and reduce contamination of recyclates to a target of 20 per cent.

These include education campaigns, continued enforcement, the review of the MRF and trommel arrangement and ‘positive picking’ of highest-value recyclates.

It sets out the Council will continue to look for innovative approaches to waste collection.