Louise Brown, 47, says she thinks about recycling “all the time”.
“I could not put this in a landfill bin – I just physically couldn’t,” she says, holding an empty oat milk carton.
But opening the shared bin store near her Luton flat, she despairs.
“If you look in here, all of this stuff could be recycled – there’s plastic boxes, there’s cardboard, there’s cans and plastic – so it’s a real shame.”
When she moved in about three years ago, the stores had separate containers for recycling and general waste.
But she says there was so much contamination – landfill waste being mixed with the recycling – that the recycling bins were taken away.
Brown, a member of Luton Friends of the Earth, says she was “gutted” by the decision.
“If it wasn’t so gross, I’d be getting in there with my gloves,” she adds, looking at the overflowing shared bin.
“I have done before – I have literally taken stuff out, going, ‘Oh God, that could be recycled.'”