FOR MOST people the garage is a convenient place to store the family car and some gardening equipment, but for one Perth man it has become a huge dustbin.

Mike Murray has collected a massive amount of recyclable waste and yesterday called on the council to introduce more kerbside collections.

The Cornhill Way resident refuses to send the waste to landfill, but admits his wife is rapidly losing patience.

Mr Murray is horrified by the amount of rubbish—paper, glass, aluminium and plastic—that is thrown away instead of recycled and is particularly keen to set a good example for his five-year-old son, Teague.

“I hope that when they grow up young people like Teague will be disgusted to hear about the amount of rubbish that people used to send to landfill,” Mr Murray said.

“I became annoyed about all the stuff getting thrown into normal bins and have now collected a massive amount of recyclable materials.

“Unfortunately it is not easy to get such a mass of stuff recycled and I think Perth and Kinross Council has been a bit slow on the uptake of kerbside collections.”

When contacted by The Courier a council spokesman said Perth and Kinross Council was “set to revolutionise” waste and recycling practices at the kerbside.

“Significant funding from the Scottish Executive will assist in the delivery of a range of initiatives, including increased plastics recycling,” he said.

“However, the priority at this stage is to meet the requirements of the European landfill directive, which seeks to reduce the levels of biodegradable municipal waste going to landfill. It is this waste which contributes most to potential pollution of the atmosphere and surrounding groundwater.

“Therefore in the short term the council will be focusing on the expanded kerbside collection to over 40,000 households for both garden waste and paper which are classed as biodegradable.

“In addition, substantially increased numbers of recycling points in communities will be developed.”

The council spokesman pointed out the all the existing council recycling centres already could deal with plastic milk cartons and that the Friarton recycling centre could deal with fizzy drink bottles.