TOWN centre recycling sites are being threatened with closure because lazy recyclers keep dumping their bags of bottles and cans outside the bins.

Councillors are urging residents across Hambleton to put their waste in the banks provided instead of piling it up next to them.

Council workers are having to spend time cleaning up the sites - taking them away from other duties - and it is leading to extra costs for council tax payers.

"A minority of lazy recyclers could herald the end for some of our sites," said Hambleton District Councillor Arthur Barker.

"We do not want to remove any of our banks, but if this problem does not stop we may have to take drastic action. These centres are there to help clean up the environment not to be used as a dumping ground.

"We cannot understand why people bother to collect their cans, bottles and papers and take them to the site if they cannot spend a few extra minutes placing them in the correct bins."

He said the Council can no longer guarantee that bags of recyclables left beside the bins will not end up at landfill sites.

"This Council does not have the staff to keep on cleaning up after these people," he said.

"All the research we have carried out points to residents wanting to recycle and it is encouraging to see how many people have become recyclers in the past year. We don't want to see that good work undone."

The Council operates twenty-nine mini-recycling centres on village sites, as well as five larger collection centres in Northallerton, Thirsk, Stokesley, Easingwold and Bedale.