Bin And Gone: Almost £200,000 Dumped On Replacement Inserts

More than 500 bin inserts are replaced every month after they get damaged or go missing.

Following claims by members of the public that bin inserts often get thrown away into the bin lorries along with the recycling waste, the council was asked for the figures.

Nearly 20 recycling bin inserts — which are made of plastic — are replaced a day on average on the Isle of Wight, new figures have revealed.

It has cost between £182,000 and £199,000 to replace the green bin inserts for paper and cardboard— depending on the size of the caddy — in the past five years, but the Isle of Wight Council has not had to foot the bill.

Between April 2018 and March 2023, 30,665 containers were replaced. On average, 6,133 inserts are replaced each year – that’s 511 a month.

A small insert costs £5.95 to replace whereas a bigger one costs £6.50.

The most common reasons why the inserts are replaced, the council says, is because they are either damaged or lost/stolen.

The Isle of Wight Council said it does not record whether an insert has been thrown away into the bin lorry.

The cost of replacing the inserts falls to the Island’s contracted waste service provider — which was previously Amey, but is now under a different Ferrovial company.

The Isle of Wight Council has justified the replacement inserts saying as it was over a five-year period, and across around 72,000 properties crews collected from each week, it was “only a turnover of 8.5 per cent per year.”

A council spokesperson also said residents are able to have more than one insert box to recycle more.