New research has shown that more bins can have a detrimental effect on the amount of waste householders recycle.

Staffordshire Council recently gained a mixed response from householders when they issued nine different bins to families in the area. The bins were for garden waste, non-recyclables, food, cardboard, plastic, paper, glass clothes and compost.

But this approach may be wrong, as research shows that making householders sort waste may lead to lower recycling rates.

According to the data, there is a 25 per cent increase in household recycling when only one bin is required for ‘dry’ recycling such as plastic and glass. Councils that have retained the one bin scheme have collected up to 627lbs per household, whereas, authorities that require sorting prior to pick-up only collected 525lbs from each household.