North Somerset Council secures refund for faulty recycling bags

A council has said that it has been given a refund by a company that supplied thousands of faulty household recycling bags.

Residents in the North Somerset Council area were issued with red bags for their plastic and metal waste in March, following a successful trial in November 2024 that aimed to boost recycling.

But there were complaints from residents as many of the bags were found to have faded in the sun and were “falling apart at the seams”.

Councillor Annemieke Waite said the unnamed company had admitted responsibility for the issues. She added that the authority had reached a “very good agreement” with the supplier and the cost of the faulty bags would be refunded.

The council trialled the bags with 6,000 households last year. Although it received a positive outcome, some residents said the bags were too large.

Ahead of the council-wide rollout in March, a batch of smaller bags were ordered from the same supplier and it appeared to be these that deteriorated quickly, said Waite.

She added: “We know that the people who actually had the original bags are still very pleased with them and those bags have never deteriorated, have never faded.

“So we absolutely know this is something that was completely beyond our control and it was just down to the quality of the bags that were delivered in the second batch.”

Residents can order replacement bags on the council website, but are warned that the new bags would come from the same faulty batch, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.