HOUSEHOLDERS have been warned they have one more chance to start recycling, then they’ll risk a fine.

About 7,100 households in Colchester are being asked to put out food waste out in special green plastic boxes alongside their black bin-bags and other recycling.

It is part of a Colchester Council trial scheme which, if successful, will be extended across the borough in an effort to reduce the proportion of the borough’s rubbish sent to landfill sites.

At present, Colchester’s recycling rate is below the Essex average and Martin Hunt, the councillor responsible for waste collection, hopes the move lead to at least half of waste being recycled.

He said further progress depended on a change of heart by the many residents who currently recycled very little or nothing.

The council is considering tough action to force such people to change.

After warning letters and visits by officials, those who stubbornly refused to join in could be fined as a last resort, he said. Mr Hunt added: “We can’t go a lot further with people who refuse to do it without showing more of the stick than the carrot. We might seriously have to think about using the stick.

“We haven’t done it yet, but we have the right to issue orders to people if we find stuff in their black bags which shouldn’t be there, forcing them to recycle.

“I have never done that and I don’t want to do that, because I prefer to do it the other way.”

But he warned: “This will be the last time we ask people nicely to recycle.”

Alongside the food waste trial, a new system is coming in which divides the borough into seven zones, each of which will be the responsibility of a named officer.

Mr Hunt said: “Now we have the zones in place we will try to nudge more than a few people who don’t recycle at all to start doing some recycling. We will be going round, looking at doorsteps and finding out who is recycling and who is not. There are a lot of people who don’t recycle at all and I’m hoping to encourage them to start.”

Mr Hunt said 35 residents in the food waste trial areas – Mile End, Tiptree, Stanway, Greenstead, Fingringhoe and Abberton had refused to take part in the scheme.

In contrast, some Stanway residents had shown their enthusiasm by putting out their food waste caddies a week early.