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The team is keen to help residents improve the quality of materials left out for collection and is aiming to reduce the items which cannot be gathered in for recycling. 

The biggest offending items are:

• liquid-based food and drink containers (Tetra-Pak cartons), which are made of mixed materials and so cannot be easily recycled;
• yoghurt pots, which are made from various plastics and which the city council's reprocessor does not collect;
• food packaging containers, which comprise a variety of materials and which are also unsuitable for the reprocessor.

Community waste workers are monitoring kerbside routes for contamination and will leave yellow stickers in kerbside boxes to tell residents that certain items could not be recycled and were therefore not collected.

Waste marketing officer Linda Jordinson said:
“All the kerbside services we can offer have been rolled out and we are now trying to focus on improving the quality of the materials left for recycling. We are trying to tackle the problem of residents leaving the wrong materials for collection.

“This is just a step towards improving the awareness of residents and to avoid disappointment when items are left. We are also trying to improve the service level of the crews by having them not collect items that cannot be recycled.”

Northsound 1 radio are supporting the campaign by running a “Let's get it sorted” competition, giving residents the chance to win £50 on the spot for presenting their kerbside box correctly.

Residents can collect a kerbside box sticker from Access points or from Northsound reception at 45 Kingsgate. Northsound's street teams will be out spotting bin stickers to give out prizes. The station has also set up a special campaign website called “The Green Room”, which can be accessed via a link from the main website.

The campaign and competition will run for 12 weeks and will include bus shelter and press advertising.