A recycling bank was removed from a car park – but users had the bottle to dump their empties there anyway.
A large pile of bottles and general rubbish could be found in the Biggleswade Aldi store’s car park this week – after Central Beds Council took away the previous bottle bank.
The bank had been located in the lower section of the car park for more than a decade but was removed at Aldi’s request.
Aldi staff said the facility was encroaching on its car parking spaces.
But regular bottle bank users ignored the change and continued to leave their empty bottles on the ground where the facility stood.
Following a string of complaints and pressure from residents, Central Beds has now returned the bottle bank at Aldi’s request.
An Aldi spokesman said: “The recycling facilities were removed from Aldi’s car park to free up car parking for our increasing number of customers.
“However, due to continued fly tipping and to preserve the environment the facilities have been reinstated.
“The council agreed to clear up the glass which built up in the car park and we hope that by reinstating the facilities it will avoid the situation happening again.”
Councillor Brian Spurr, executive member for sustainable communities – services at Central Beds Council said: “The bottle bank was removed from the car park at the request of Aldi.
“Aldi have subsequently been back in touch with us to ask if the bottle bank can be reinstated to its original position.
“We were more than happy to do this.
“Once we received confirmation from Aldi we put the bottle bank back and as a goodwill gesture, we have also cleared up the mess that had built up.”