Black recycling boxes in Wokingham should be replaced with waterproof plastic sacks as soon as possible, says the leader of Wokingham Borough Council.

Councillor John Halsall claims the sacks will save the council around £400,000 a year and he wants them to be rolled out “as quickly as possible”, before rain ruins more recycling.

Recent rule changes mean recycling plants no longer accept wet card and paper, and the council says around 4,000 tonnes of Wokingham’s soggy recycling could be rejected each year.

According to the council, that costs around £600,000, but it can keep the recycling dry by spending £197,000 a year on the sealable sacks.

The Conservative-run council’s Executive approved plans to borrow £288,000 for the sacks in July, but the project was put on hold after Liberal Democrat councillors called for the decision to be reviewed because they were concerned about a lack of scrutiny.

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The project is back on track and the plastic sacks are expected to get the green light at a meeting of the Executive in September

But the Tories claim the cost of delaying the scheme is around £13,000 a week and Cllr Halsall says he would like to see the sacks get handed out “tomorrow”.

He said: “We would have hoped that the opposition parties would be supportive, rather than obstructive. They called it in, which by definition is not helpful.

“We are now trying to do the best we can to expedite it as quickly as possible.“

He also admitted there is “no perfect solution to this problem” but consultants advised the council to purchase the sacks, following a lengthy assessment.

He added: “We need a short-term, relatively cheap solution which saves us about £600,000 a year in costs, with a net saving of about £400,000.

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“Wokingham has never used wheelie bins. It may or may not be the answer for the future, but we’ve just invested in new collection lorries.

“The lorries don’t accommodate wheelie bins, so we’d have to get rid of them, that would cost about £10 million.”

However, Cllr Clive Jones (Liberal Democrat) says the project was delayed by “Conservative incompetence”.

According to Cllr Jones, they approved the £288,000 borrowing without proper scrutiny, as the public and councillors were not provided with enough information about the move beforehand.

“Blaming Lib Dems for the delay is quite ridiculous and Cllr Halsall should apologise to residents and to the Lib Dems,” he said.