BASINGSTOKE and Deane Borough Council has been ranked as one of the worst performing local authorities for household recycling.

Recent figures provided by WasteDataFlow show that the borough council ranks as 329 out of 351 authorities for the percentage of household waste sent for reuse, recycling or composting.

New EU legislation aims to get the UK achieving a 50 per cent recycling target, however Basingstoke and Deane is at just 26.3 per cent.

The figures were provided for the financial year of 2015/16, but households in the borough have not been higher than 28 per cent since 2011.

In 2011 only 20.6 per cent of households were recycling, 25.5 per cent in 2012, 25.1 per cent in 2013 and 24.6 in 2014.

Basingstok e Labour Group leader Cllr Paul Harvey said: “People being charged to tak e things to the tip in Wade Road is one of the key factors, this has led to a rise in fly tipping and something the council could address by changing the policy rather than penny pinching.

“People want to recycle and are frustrated by the lack of recycling points and alternate weekly collections is just going to add to the problem. 

“It is nice of local supermarkets to step in and take some of the weight by providing recycling points, but this just emphasises the failing of the council.”

BDBC cabinet member for regulatory services and the environment Cllr Hayley Eachus said: “We tak e this issue very seriously and are continuing to work with our residents to educate them on what you can and can’t recycle .

“To encourage our residents to recycle more we replace lost or damaged grey bins with smaller 140 litre bins, have banned garden waste and recyclable items from grey bins and collect glass through our free kerbside glass collection service. We also run a popular opt-in collection service for garden waste.

“As part of a tender process we are also looking at options for the future to increase recycling levels.”