OVER 6,500 people in the District have been subject to enforcement action after leaving too much waste out to be collected.

Since March 2016, Bradford Council has begun enforcement action against 6,528 people for either putting out more than one bin to be collected, or for leaving “side waste” such as extra bin bags.

And in the same period almost 5,000 people were contacted by the Council for “contaminating” their recycling.

The issue was being discussed by Bradford Council’s Regeneration and Environment Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday night, when members were given an update on waste management in the Bradford District.

They were told that bin crews use “In-Cab technology” to log properties that do not comply with the Council’s bin policy, which allows one household waste bin to be collected, or produces contaminated recycling.

If staff notice people aren’t complying with the policies, then they are given three weeks to put things right.

If they still don’t comply, then they are moved to “stage 2” and eventually “stage 3” if they refuse to comply.

However, the committee were told that just 211 people out of the 6,528 were moved to stage 2 for leaving out extra waste, and just two out of the 4,963 warned over contaminated recycling were moved to stage 2.

Susan Spink, principal officer for waste management told members: “The fact that nobody was moved to stage 3 shows that residents might have started to comply by that point. It shows that pushing forward with enforcement is having an impact.”

Members were told that despite Bradford’s population growing, along with the number of households, the amount of household waste collected has fallen in recent years, from 201,190 tonnes in 2016/17 to 191,681 tonnes last year.

This as accompanied by an increase in the amount of recycling collected – up by 8,933 tonnes in one year – 29,536 last year compared to 20,603 in 2016/17.

The change to alternate weekly collections, where household waste is collected fortnightly and recycling is collected fortnightly on the alternate week, has been credited with the reduction in household waste being collected.

Some members said people in their respective wards were not sticking to the new policies. Councillor Joanne Dodds (Lab, Great Horton) said parts of her ward were plagued with contaminated recycling bins that were “sat there for weeks.”

She was told work was being done in that ward to deal with the issue and clean the contaminated bins.

And Councillor David Heseltine (Cons, Bingley) said there seemed to be issues with residents of Incommunities properties improperly leaving out their rubbish for collection.

He said: “Week after week I see people leaving side waste in Incommunities properties and flats. Should we be working with them to find a better way for their tenants to dispose of their waste? Obviously, what we’re doing at the moment isn’t working.”

Mrs Spink said: “We’re working very closely with Incommunities, who accept that some of their tenants don’t do what they’re expected to do when disposing of their waste. I met recently with managers who said they were looking at different ways to encourage their tenants to recycle.”