A COUNCIL has denied responsibility after plastic from Castle Point Council ended up at a landfill site in a Malaysian jungle.

Investigators from Greenpeace’s Unearthed Unit shared research with the BBC and found recycling bags from the council dumped instead.

However, the leader of the council says this is simply not the responsibility of the council contractors placing blame elsewhere.

Norman Smith, the Tory leader of Castle Point Council, said: “Our contractors’ procedure activities are fully compliant with all legal requirements and plastic film for the last 18 months has been exported to Turkey.

“None has been exported to the Far East.

“Apart from anything else it would not make economic sense for them to dispose of this type of waste at landfill at a cost of £100 per tonne when they only have to pay £25 a tonne to a recycling contractor for plastic film.

“It is not known how the pink sacks ended up in a landfill site in Malaysia but one thing for sure is that they are not sacks which were collected by our refuse crews and taken for sorting and onward processing.

“Pink sacks are freely available to residents in the borough and unfortunately it would appear that someone using our sacks has disposed of them in an inappropriate manner.”

Residents have criticised the council for the issue.

They say it makes a mockery of the system.

Beryl Cross, 77, of Long Road, Canvey said: “This is almost like a terrible joke.

“Why would we keep on trying hard to recycle when this happens.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me at all.

“We want to know that it is being dealt with correctly but it clearly is simply not happening.

“There seems no point to me in us residents recycling our waste.

“This is completely unacceptable and it should not be happening at all.

Celebrity chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall told the Daily Mail, he was stunned by the 20ft-high mounds of plastic waste looming over him during a recent visit to the site.

Walking through the wasteland near the town of Ipoh, Hugh pulled out countless plastic bags and packaging from Marks and Spencer, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Waitrose.

It was on this site the recycling bags labelled Castle Point Council were found.