A WARNING has been given to residents when presenting cardboard for recycling.

Cotswold District Council says that crews from Ubico Ltd, contracted by the council, are finding that cardboard is not being flattened for collection.

Additionally, it is often presented in pieces much larger than the specified one metre square maximum.

Cllr Sue Coakley, the CDC cabinet member for the environment, said: "We provide blue recycling sacks for kerbside recycling of small cardboard boxes, greetings cards, and other containers such as cereal, food packaging and egg boxes.

"These sacks are reasonably big but they cannot accommodate larger cardboard and we need people to flatten this down and to ensure that each section is no larger than one metre square before leaving the cardboard for collection alongside the blue sack.

"Cardboard larger than one metre square or that has not been flattened simply doesn’t fit into our vehicles.

"And we don’t have the time to flatten cardboard before trying to load it onto the vehicles if we are to complete our collection on the specified day for all of the residents in that area.

“In the circumstances, it would be very much appreciated if residents could present cardboard for collection in pieces no larger than one metre square and also ensure that it is flattened.”

For more information, visit http://www.cotswold.gov.uk/residents/bins-and-recycling/kerbside-recycling/