IT is just after 8am and the Bournemouth recycling trucks have already been out on the road for more than an hour.

They negotiate their way carefully but swiftly through the car-lined streets as impatient commuters try to squeeze past. Behind the wheel, driver Andy Bush stays calm.

We are causing a mini-traffic jam.

"Some roads, like Lansdowne Road and Christchurch Road, you have to get off before it becomes too busy. You get a lot of abuse hurled at you, but they're the first to complain if their bins aren't emptied," says Andy.

The other two members of the crew scurry from property to property peering into the recycling bins. Those that pass scrutiny are wheeled to the back of the truck, hoisted up and emptied. Those that do not are left where they are.

We are in an area off Wimborne Road where many of the properties are flats with communal bins. And therein lies a problem.

"You get some people who really want to recycle. They're doing what they're supposed to be doing," explains Andy. "Then you'll find one who isn't really interested and will put in a bag of ordinary refuse. Once they've put it in, we can't touch it."

Recycling manager Emma Sadiwskyj-Frewer said that in such cases, a contamination sticker is put on the recycling bin.

"The resident either phones us or we go and talk through the problem. With flats we don't know who it is, so we target the block as a whole.

"But there will be some people out there who won't change, won't participate and don't care whether other people are participating. Out of 80,000 properties, we have about 10 to 20 people who consistently contaminate their bins."

It is a different story when we move on to a well-kept area of Moordown, where we meet up with another crew. Pete Halliwell and Sandor Wilson pick up 1,500 bins and walk or run 15-20 miles a day.

"We might get one contaminated bin on every round. We haven't had any so far today," says Sandor.

Driver David Smith is from New Zealand and has worked in Australia.

"It's way ahead over there. One week it was bottles, one week paper, and they used to have collections for domestic appliances and vegetation," he says.

It has been six months since Bournemouth launched its new kerbside collection service to try and boost the town's recycling rate. Households were issued with new blue Little Bins for their ordinary household waste and told to use their existing Big Bins for recyclables.

But the message about the importance of recycling was nearly drowned out by protests over the discovery that each of the new bins contained an electronic chip, prompting fears that households could eventually be charged according to the weight of their rubbish.

The fact is that Britain needs to throw away less and recycle more because it is running out of space. As a country we send a higher proportion of our rubbish to landfill than any other EU country except Greece.

Once dumped, the decaying rubbish can contaminate land for decades, producing methane, a greenhouse gas eight to 10 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The government is working with manufacturers and retailers to try and cut packaging and Bournemouth council is planning a "smart shopping" campaign and starting a green waste collection scheme next month.

"We are about five to 10 years behind other European countries. Places like Germany and the Netherlands have very good levels of recycling and we are able to learn from what they have been doing," says Emma.

Bournemouth has a target of recycling 30 per cent of its waste this year. Since the beginning of the Big Bin Little Bin scheme, the amount being collected has been rising steadily.

At the moment the recycling rate is about 37 per cent. Next year, council officials expect it to be between 40 and 45 per cent.

"It's not compulsory to recycle," points out Emma. "We will meet our current targets, but if the government sets higher targets, things might change.

"The majority are open to the possibilities of recycling and being greener. It's a case of making sure the information is out there and making recycling as easy as possible."

Although levels of wrong materials placed in Big Bins has been going down, some householders remain confused about what can or cannot be recycled. A product usually says recyclable where facilities exist'.

Different councils offer different facilities.

"As years go on, we will be able to take on more types of material," said Emma.

The recycling guide sent to households when the scheme began is slightly out of date. Plastic bottle tops no longer have to be removed from recyclable bottles. Nor do windows have to be torn out of envelopes. As for plastic bottles and containers, look for the little triangle and numbers one, two or three - any other numbers cannot be recycled locally. Nor can plastic bags or anything placed inside them, so if you want your carefully collected recyclables to go through the system please do not bag them up first.

It's time to see where our recycled rubbish goes, so it's over to the Nuffield Trading Estate in Poole. The trucks go on to a weighbridge on the way in and on the way out, so that contractors Viridor can bill the council.

There, it is tipped into one of two bays before the whole lot is scooped up into large skips and taken to Kent for sorting.

  • For copies of Bournemouth's recycling guide, to register for the green waste scheme or any other recycling inquiries, ring 01202 451199.