PLANS to remove recycling banks from car parks in a town have been slammed as a ‘backwards step for the environment’ by councillors.

Liskeard Conservative Town and Cornwall Councillors Nick Craker and Jane Pascoe say the town already has pretty low rates of recycling and that they’ll campaign to reinstate the facility.

Earlier this year, Cornwall Council made the decision to award a new waste contract from October. This includes the removal of all of the recycling bins in Council-run car parks, including two in Liskeard.

Cllr Jane Pascoe said: ‘This is the wrong decision for Liskeard and a terrible backwards step for recycling in Cornwall.

‘We all want to recycle more and look after our environment but the ruling Cabinet of Cornwall Council do not seem interested in helping residents recycle.’

The Council’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee had recommended weekly recycling and food waste collection, said Cllr Nick Craker, but he says that the cabinet, which is made up of Lib Dem/ Independent members, ‘ignored’ this advice and awarded a waste contract that will mean recycling remains as a fortnightly collection.

General waste in black bags will also be collected fortnightly, and food waste will be collected on a weekly basis.

The Council had originally intended to have a weekly recycling collection as part of the new eight-year contract, but bids received at tender were unaffordable, and so a new contract specification was drawn up.

However, the Council also intends to introduce an on-street recycling scheme throughout the county from October, whereby people will be able to recycle waste at all public waste bins in town centres.

Cllr Craker said: ‘These car park recycling bins are really well used by the residents of Liskeard. In fact, I am regularly having to ring up the Council to get them to empty them more regularly because they are overflowing – showing just how well used they are by residents.

‘Many people live in flats or do not have space to store four recycling bags and therefore rely on these car park recycling facilities.’

Cllr Pascoe added that she is ‘really concerned what this decision will mean for recycling rates in Liskeard that are already some of the lowest in Cornwall’.

But Cornwall Council says items collected from car park recycling bins account for less than one per cent of the county’s total recycling.

In information provided to Liskeard Town Council, the local authority said businesses make ‘widespread illegal use’ of the public recycling facilities, which brings a cost to the Council and the tax payer.

Liskeard Town Council had been considering taking on the looking after of the recycling bins, but it said that having hoped to enter into a shared arrangement with other councils in South East Cornwall, it then learned that Looe and Saltash Town Councils have both decided not to take on their respective recycling.

After a discussion amongst members, the Town Council resolved not to take on the running of the recycling bins and to monitor the situation three months after the change.