The cost difference between removing recycling and regular rubbish was revealed at a council meeting.

When fielding a question about the difficulty people had correctly separating their rubbish, Greenwich Councillor Jackie Smith revealed how much recycling truly cost.

The cabinet member for community safety and environment revealed that regular waste costs far more to dispose of that recycling rubbish.

Speaking at the council meeting on October 18, she said: “It actually costs the council £50 a tonne to dispose of recycled waste but it costs £140 per tonne to dispose of contaminated waste."

Councillor Geoffrey Brighty had asked about whether it would be easier for locals if the waste was sorted out at the depot “rather than expecting residents to have a full knowledge of what and what isn’t recyclable and leading to entire bins of otherwise recyclable material being declared contaminated.”

He said: “A recent survey by the charity RAP which found a lack of knowledge or confusion generally about what can be recycled because there are many different rules about it around the country. “

However Cllr Smith responded by saying that recycling in the borough isn’t that difficult and costs the council extra money every time they have to implement something new.

She said: “Every time we send somebody round to collect a black bin it costs us about £5.”

“Anything else we do at the depot costs money so it really is up to residents to try to do what we ask them to do which put the right things in each of the three bins which really shouldn’t be that difficult.

“We rely on residents supporting the service by placing the correct items in the recycling and organics bins. This in turn helps to keep the cost associated with disposal down as it costs the Council less to recycle per tonne than it does to send general waste to incineration or landfill.”