Douglas councillor Falk Horning has said the island has the lowest recycling rate of all surrounding jurisdictions, including Jersey and Guernsey

Mr Horning said: ‘The island is falling far behind other areas when it comes to recycling.’

This comes after concerns were raised by Douglas residents about the council’s move to fortnightly general waste collection.

Over the weekend there were long queues at the civic amenity site in Douglas, with reports that some people were struggling to adjust to the new system of collections.

Mr Horning, who is chair of the council’s environment services committee, said:‘I would like to thank the many residents who are engaging with Douglas waste services, and of course there will be some challenges for people, especially when they are changing habits.’

The Eastern Civic Amenity Site is one of the only other places Douglas residents can dispose of general waste and garden waste if their bin is too full.

A statement from the amenity site operators said that Sunday was busy but was ‘more likely caused by several contributory factors rather than any direct relationship to the council’s new waste collection system’.

The statement goes on to say that weather influences when people go to the site and the poor conditions on Saturday meant more people decided to go on Sunday.

The site confirmed it also expects it to be busy at this time of year because it is the end of the growing season when people do their last garden cuts.

Aside from general waste, the following items will be accepted at the site: recyclable materials, garden waste, waste oil, white goods, fluorescent tubes, some DIY material, batteries, textiles, metals, TVs, computers and monitors.

The new fortnightly refuse collection service in Douglas has been running since September 26 and site operators believe any increase in activity, five weeks later, would not necessarily be due to this.

There has been scrutiny over the impact that the new bin collection schedule will have on waste capacity for Douglas residents.

Mr Horning said: ‘We won’t be changing the recycling boxes to bins in Douglas, although it is being periodically reviewed.

‘If we buy new recycling containers, there would be a considerable cost for that, and in the current economic climate it is quite hard to justify that.’

He added: ‘Under our current box system, people can have as many recycling boxes as they need.’