Who's been rooting through your bin?

COUNCIL 'spies' have been rooting through city wheelie bins to check whether residents have put rubbish in the right bin.

The Coventry Observer was tipped off by a disgruntled resident, who spotted three women wearing high-visibility jackets and carrying clipboards rifling through recycling bins in the city's Charterhouse district.

When the resident, who did not wish to be named, confronted the women, she was told the trio were working on behalf of the council, checking residents were putting the right rubbish in recycling bins.

When The Observer spoke to other residents in Charterhous, it emerged nobody was aware the council was keeping tabs on what rubbish residents were putting in bins.

The majority criticised the council for resorting to 'Big Brother' tactics, branding the bin spies a gross invasion of privacy and a complete waste of taxpayers' money.

Bree Macdonald, who lives in St George's Road with her husband Ken, said: "I think it's disgusting, a complete waste of council resources.
"Why not put notices up or send letters out instead of paying people to snoop in our bins?"

And the 29-year-old said the council needed to spend cash on more pressing issues - such as the state of the city's roads.

"The road outside our house has been horrendous for months," she added. "Why can't they spend money on repairing the pot holes, instead of wasting money paying people to snoop?"

Denise Dishiala, who lives with her six children in St George's Road, was also shocked to hear about the bin snoopers, but said she believed the council was right to make sure residents were recycling rubbish properly.

"The council gave us these blue bins to recycle glass, paper and plastic, and we as residents need to respect that," she said.

"The council must be checking people's bins because some residents are obviously not using their recycling bins properly."

A city council spokesman confirmed the council had hired workers to check the contents of residents' bins after receiving reports of residents putting household waste in recycling bins.

The spokesman said the council incurred extra costs when the contents of recycling bins were rejected at recycling plants.

"Our aim is to educate people on the right and wrong things to put in their bin, so when a bin is contaminated we try to identify the owner so we can advise them," the spokesman added.