A man has accused the council of being short-sighted after being told to throw away his brown food waste bin – against the council’s official policy.

Mick Gordon, who lives on Pennine Drive, Golders Green, was told by a binman that the separate food waste collection service was stopping, so he might as well throw the brown bin away.

Mr Gordon called Barnet Council to double-check what the binman had told him.

But while the council’s official policy is for residents to keep hold of their brown bins in case the service is reintroduced, this is not what he was advised to do.

Mr Gordon said: “They told me you might as well just get rid of it

“They said, put them into the regular trash bins – and most definitely not into the recycle bins, because these Recycle for Barnet bins are made from non-recyclable plastic.

“As it happens, we have not thrown it out. I was thinking, surely I can find a use for it.”

Mr Gordon said he had become keenly aware of the dangers of plastic pollution thanks to shows such as David Attenborough’s The Blue Planet.

He said: “That is the first thing I thought of when it came to the concept of having to throw out this rather large item.

“If hundreds of thousands of households do that, that is a lot of plastic in landfill.

“To me, it just shows a certain short-sightedness.

“Why could they not have made it from recyclable plastic?

“I choose products at the supermarket based not just on the contents but on the packaging.

“There is no excuse for it.”

Barnet Council previously urged people to keep hold of their food waste bins and caddies while it carries out a review of the refuse service.

It followed a dispute with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan over plans to scrap brown bin collections completely.

The mayor said he could overturn the decision because it goes against the London Environment Strategy.

A council spokesman said: “The brown bins and caddies are made of 100 per cent recycled material.

“They can be recycled where there are facilities which accept hard/rigid plastics; currently there are no local facilities that can accept this material.

“However, we are advising residents to clean and store their food waste bin and caddy for future use.”