A Beckton resident appealed to Newham Council to make recycling easier in the week that mayor Boris Johnson urged Londoners to do their bit for the environment.

The council’s new policy, intended to significantly increase the recycling recovery rate, is to phase out orange recycling bags in favour of orange-topped wheelie bins.

But the council’s website states that low and high-rise buildings in the borough will continue to receive them.

Andi Euridge, 38, who lives in flats on Robin Crescent, claims she had to telephone and email the council for a month before any recycling facilities arrived.

She said that the delay in her recycling service was “just silly and completely unnecessary” and she reports that her neighbours and other high-rise residents have not received a recycling alternative either.

Miss Euridge said: “The council has one of the worst records for recycling. They make it so hard for people in flats to do it when they should be trying to make it easier. But they are just not providing the facilities.”

This complaint arrived in the week that Mr Johnson and London councils joined forces to launch a major recycling campaign to double the recycling efforts of Londoners to save �320million by 2015 which could be spent on local services.

Chairman Cllr Colin Hall said: “The Recycle for London campaign helps to raise awareness that when we’re throwing away rubbish, we’re actually throwing away money.”

According to a recent summary by the Environment Agency, Newham has the second lowest recycling rate in the country with only 18.8 per cent of households recycling in 2009/10, falling short of their target of 22 per cent.

In response to Miss Euridges’s complaint, the council said: “Planning is currently underway to roll out recycling for flats from August onwards. Meanwhile the council will continue to deliver orange recycling bags to properties without recycling bins.

“In future there will only be a handful of residents who will remain using recycling bags as their properties are unsuitable for recycling bins. Every effort will be made to help any resident who wants to recycle.”

n To find out more about the council’s new recycling policy, visit www.newham.gov.uk.