A campaign group is calling on the council to roll-out its ill-fated kerbside bin collection scheme in a bid to improve the region’s recycling rate.

Friends of the Earth Dumfries has petitioned the council in efforts to see more progress made on the recycling scheme, which was initially started in Wigtownshire in 2014.

The initiative aims to have residents across the region separating household waste into five different bins – collecting glass, paper, cardboard, cans, textiles and food waste separately.

It was planned to be implemented in the Stewartry by the end of 2014 and the rest of the region by the end of 2015.

But the project ran into a series of issues and meant that the 330,000 bins designed for the roll-out, as well as recycling containers and balers, have been kept at a storage facility in Heathhall by the council as it attempts to resolve the problems with the scheme.

Ian Gasse from FOE Dumfries this week called on the authority to step up its plans to introduce the new recycling collection system.

The online petition set up by the group has gathered nearly 90 signatures to date.

Mr Gasse said: “The council promised the roll-out in 2015, so the petition is all about showing the council that there is a body of local opinion that cares about recycling so they don’t forget about the issue and deal with it.”

The most recent figures from the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) on recycling levels for household waste showed that only four local authorities in Scotland had a lower figure than Dumfries and Galloway’s 26.7 per cent.

Thirteen others record a rating of more than 50 per cent, with East Renfrewshire achieving over 60 per cent.

Mr Gasse added: “The world is having a huge environment problem with plastic and the plastic recycling in Dumfries and Galloway is not good.

“More councils do better by not contaminating materials and that means separating as much as you can for efficient recycling. We can’t just keep going on chucking stuff away.

“It was found that 40 per cent of our local waste goes to landfill. That number is at five per cent in Dundee and if East Renfrewshire can have such a good recycling rate, then why can’t the council down here do the same?”

No-one at the council was available for comment on the issue.