NOT for the first time, the issue of how to improve Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s poor recycling rate is back in the spotlight.

In the latest effort to get more people on board, a new system is to be used whereby warning hangers will be placed on grey household bins which are found to contain recyclable items. If a red hanger is left on a bin after a third transgression, then that bin will not be collected.

Letters and personal visits by council officers are also set to be part of the armoury as the borough’s leaders continue to hold with the belief that education, rather than punishment, is the way ahead.

Undoubtedly, a very positive move is the fact that new homes will only be issued with a smaller 140-litre household bin, and any homes wanting a replacement bin will also only get the smaller one. In addition, glass recycling is also going to be made even easier.

Like her predecessors in the post of borough environment chief, Councillor Hayley Eachus certainly has good intentions – and she sounds like she is determined to turn words into actions that bring results.

She says: “At the end of the day, we cannot continue to collect waste weekly if people do not try to sort out what can and cannot be recycled. People can’t keep binning recyclable materials.”

Cllr Eachus is right, but if the plan of action is approved, time will tell whether the beefed-up approach will deliver the desired result. Let’s hope it does, because the only real alternative left to improve the recycling rate will be to go to alternate weekly collections – and most residents don’t want that, do they?