Gateshead Council Warns Dirty Recycling Costs Over £300,000

In early February 2026, Gateshead Council in Tyne and Wear warned that putting the wrong items in recycling bins is costing the borough more than £300,000 every year. The council says non-recyclable items — including food waste and soiled nappies — are being mixed into household recycling and can render whole bin loads or even entire lorry loads unusable.

Councillor John McElroy, Cabinet Member for Environment and Transport, said most people recycle responsibly but that some residents are not getting it right, which is making whole bin loads unusable. Gateshead Council’s official statement added that spending on processing contaminated recycling (the council estimates the fiscal impact is in excess of A3300,000 per year) diverts money away from local priorities such as social care, road maintenance and community projects.

The South Tyne and Wear Waste Management Partnership, which manages regional waste contracts for Gateshead and neighbouring authorities, says contaminated loads are often rejected at transfer stations and diverted for disposal or energy recovery at considerably higher cost to the public purse. To tackle the problem, the council says it uses CCTV on collection vehicles and is carrying out pre-collection checks; crews have been instructed not to empty bins that visibly contain contamination and to apply a sticker asking residents to remove the offending items.

Households discovered to have non-recyclable items in their recycling will have their blue recycling bin left uncollected and marked with a bin tag. The council says the bin will be emptied on the next scheduled collection once the resident has removed the contaminating items. The measures are part of a drive to reduce contamination rates, which have been a persistent issue for the partnership over the last several years.