A video of a bin man apparently throwing recycling and rubbish into a truck together after households were asked to do more of their own sorting has sparked fury.

Brent Council ordered households with blue-lidded bins to separate card and paper from glass, metal, and plastic and put them into new 90-litre blue sacks.

Collections have also been cut from weekly to fortnightly as part of the council’s goal of being “carbon neutral by 2030”.

But just days after its implementation on October 1 a video sent to the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) appears to capture a bin man mixing the contents of the blue sack into the main bin and emptying them into the truck.

A resident on neighbourhood app Nextdoor claims they saw the same thing when their rubbish was collected last week.

They said: “We had the first collection of the blue recycling bag today. I noticed they were putting the contents of the bag into the blue bins before throwing the contents into the collection truck as usual. Which begs the question, what was the point of the bag if it all ends up in the same blue bin?”

Another told a similar story. They said: “They emptied the sack into my blue bin then put it all in the truck together.

"This is a ridiculous idea, not least the sack itself. I don’t know any family that will have enough space in there for two weeks of paper and card; we filled it within three days, then what? You have to put it in general waste so less gets recycled. Why not at least provide an extra bin!”

Others say the sacks come apart, take up too much space, or are too small. One said: “So, it’s Sunday evening, my blue sack is nearly full and there’s nearly two weeks before its first collection. Well done Brent Council for introducing a ridiculously impractical and ill thought-out cardboard recycling update.”

A petition signed by more than 400 people has been submitted to the council demanding a return to the single blue bin.

Brent Liberal Democrat group leader Cllr Anton Georgiou predicted a U-turn, saying said it is “not surprising” people are already experiencing issues after Liberal Democrats concerns were ignored by the administration and council officers.

Cabinet member for environment, infrastructure and climate action, Cllr Krupa Sheth, said: “We completely understand people’s frustration at this video, which we hope was a one-off caused by teething problems while crews get used to the new service.”

She added: “We have raised this with our colleagues at Veolia who have assured us that the vast majority of recycling has been collected properly and they are taking steps to ensure this does not happen again.

“I want to reassure residents that this does not undo your efforts as over 23 tonnes of paper and cardboard went to our recycling plant last week. More recycling going to the sorting depot improves our recycling rates, which is better the environment and our planet.”