Croydon and Sutton Councils have admitted that recycling at some blocks of flats will be sent for incineration amid the national lorry driver shortage.

It comes after Merton Council apologised to residents for making the same decision, described as a “last resort”.

It means that recycling from communal bins will be sent straight to the Beddington incinerator which burns general waste to create energy.

The three councils are part of the South London Waste Partnership which is managed by contractor Veolia.

A national shortage of lorry drivers has been blamed on the pandemic and Brexit and is also impacting the supply of some food and other products.

But Green Party campaigner and candidate in next year’s Croydon elections, Peter Underwood, worries that recycling being incinerated is a wider problem.

He said: “People are so frustrated and annoyed they feel let down by the councils, they are going to the effort of splitting up their recycling but then they find out it’s being sent to the incinerator.

“I personally find that whenever I contact the council about it they defend the contractor, they should be pressing the contractor to improve their service not making excuses for them.

“I think they have gone public about the flats because they can’t hide it anymore, we know it is happening anyway. There are a lot of questions about what is actually going on.”

A spokesperson for Sutton Council said the decision to merge some collections was made rather than reducing the frequency.

They said: “Regrettably, this means we have temporarily stopped picking up recycling from communal bins. This is because they are often contaminated with non-recyclable waste, meaning we need to send a second crew to pick up and dispose of the waste that cannot be recycled.

“By doing this we can continue to collect the overwhelming majority of recycling across the borough. Sutton remains fully committed to sustainability and as soon as HGV driver numbers return to normal we will revert to collections from communal bins.”

While a Croydon Council spokesperson said: “Since the national HGV driver shortage arose, the council has proactively worked with our waste contractor Veolia to minimise disruptions by combining communal building collections where necessary, and moving some collections to the weekend. We expect this arrangement to be temporary, and will continue to keep residents updated.”