Exeter City Council is charging residents £10 to take away their green recycling bins if they put unsuitable waste in them, in a bid to reduce contamination.

The move comes after the recycling facility where the waste is sent had to be shut down several times in order to deal with non-recyclable products, at a cost of £70,000 a year.

In the past, bins have contained unsuitable rubbish such as food, dog mess and dirty nappies.

The council is reluctant to prosecute offenders in court through Section 49 orders, as it has proven difficult in the past to prove the householder was responsible for all the waste.

Using existing powers, the council is now offering households the choice of having correctly-filled green bins collected for free, or paying the £10 charge for having a contaminated bin taken away as a special collection.

Bob Norley, head of Exeter’s nvironmental health services, said: ‘A minority of householders are serial contaminators. They do not respond to stickers, letters and visits informing them about what they can put in the green bins. We have tried education but they are not bothered.’

Norley said the move was aimed as a deterrent for residents and to make them realise there was a cost to recycling. ‘Every week there are about 25 cases of contamination, and when we have to stop the conveyor belt at the recycling plant, it is costing tax payers money. There are cases of genuine mistakes but it is the chronic contamination that we want to tackle.’