SWINDON Council has been left with a growing paper mountain after the collapse in the price of recycled paper.

But despite this people are being urged to keep putting out their paper for recycling.

Until recently the council sold all the recycled paper it collected and ploughed the cash back into its recycling service.

But the worldwide economic downturn, and a slowdown of manufacturing in China, has seen the price it can get for recycled paper nosedive.

Now Swindon Council has 1,700 tonnes of unwanted paper piling up in its Waterside depot – and 300 more tonnes, in 25 trucks, are arriving every week.

“There isn’t an end in sight at the moment,” said George Walker, head of street services at Swindon Council.

“China has released a huge amount of money into its economy and that might start its manufacturing up again, which would lead to a greater demand for our paper.

“But for now it’s getting tougher and tougher.”

It is not just paper that is piling up for councils across the country.

Some local authorities have such massive stockpiles of recyclable material that they are having to ask the Government for help to cover the cost of storing it all, until the price picks up again.

But Mr Walker said for now the way Swindon handles its recyclables was helping to prevent this problem here.

“We’re very, very lucky here that the recycling product – the glass, steel, aluminium and plastic – are shifting,” he said.

“We are still managing to sell steel but it’s beginning to get worse every day because there’s no market for it.

“For now people in Swindon are giving us good quality recyclables – they wash out glass bottles and aluminium cans and they clean their plastic and steel.

“That means what Swindon offers is a quality product and in times like these people will still want it.”

Despite the problems selling on recyclable materials, the council insists people should keep putting it out every week.

“We must continue to recycle,” said Mr Walker.

“We still have recycling targets to hit and we don’t want people to start putting these items into rubbish collection, where they will go into landfill.

“If we incur landfill costs the charges become massive.

“For now we are OK with storing this paper.

“Even with the increase we’re expecting over Christmas it should be OK.

“For now we have space for storing paper until April.

“I hope that by then we, and the world economy, will be in a stronger position.”