FURY has greeted the refusal of Welwyn Hatfield Council to take away old recycling boxes, as the authority’s new waste regime came into force.

Stephen Bamfield, who lives in Bradshaws, Hatfield, is worried the old boxes will be fly-tipped.

He told the Welwyn Hatfield Times: “We don’t know what to do with the old bins.

“I called the council and they said ‘it’s not really our problem’.

“They told me ‘you can take them to a council tip’.

“They’re going to be dumped in huge numbers.

“I asked if we could break them up and put them in the recyclable bin but the said ‘no’.”

He added: “What the hell is the council playing at?

“It is ridiculous.

“We’re going to end up with bins all over the place.”

A council spokesman told Mr Bamfield to use the old boxes in his garden as, “they make a lovely plant pot”.

He confirmed that the boxes could not be put into the new bins for collection.

“The boxes are hard plastic and cannot be recycled with our contractor.

“They can, however, be recycled at the Household Waste Recycling Centres such as the centre at Cole Green.

“The recycling boxes can be used for growing or storing plants or vegetables, extra storage in the garage or garden shed”, he said.

Asked by the WHT why the boxes could not be recycled at the roadside, he said: “Hard plastics are a completely separate grade of plastics to disposable food and drink packaging.

“Although the company we send our plastics to do process it, it has to be collected separately to food/drink packaging because it is processed differently. We therefore cannot collect it mixed.”

But Mr Bamfield said he was “gobsmacked” by the council’s position.

He added: “What about old age pensioners, are they supposed to put them [the boxes] under their arms and take them with them on the bus [to the tip].

“I know what I’d like to do – and that’s take them to the local town hall and dump them in the reception because they’re theirs.”