Tesco Portsmouth ditches bottle banks after fly-tipping - with city councillors urging a rethink

Fly-tipping has blighted Fratton Tesco Extra’s recycling point, with the store manager responding by removing the well-used glass recycling bins.

They are among a network of bottle banks in the city – currently the only place that glass can be recycled.

Portsmouth City Council has launched a plan to introduce kerbside recycling but the plan is in its infancy.

Gerald Vernon-Jackson, council leader, wants Tesco to reverse its decision.

‘I understand that the reason they’ve given is that they get fly-tipping,’ he said.

‘I’ve never seen that with the glass side, I can’t understand that.’

He said a ‘company making hundreds of millions of pounds’ which boasts of its environmental efforts is wrong to remove the banks with ‘no need to do so’.

Cllr Vernon-Jackson said it’s ‘absolutely wrong’.

Cardboard and paper recycling have also been removed, but this is being done on a national scale.

Glass recycling was removed at the Portsmouth store due to a local decision, the city councillor said.

Cllr Kimberly Barrett, cabinet member for climate change and the green recovery, has written to Tesco.

In her letter she said: ‘We are aware of increasing reports of fly-tipping in and around this particular recycling site.

‘Although we understand this must be frustrating to clean up and keep on top of, we don't see how removing this site is beneficial to the residents of Portsmouth who use this location and make the effort to recycle.

‘Surely your profits over the last year can go some way into managing this service?’

Tesco has been approached for comment by The News.

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