KENDAL'S first week of kerbside recycling has been hailed a success by council bosses - despite encountering a few teething problems.

Monday (March 5) saw the first collection of blue recycling boxes and green waste bins from 10,000 properties at Kendal, Oxenholme, Natland and Burneside as South Lakeland District Council's kerbside scheme got under way.

And, although the launch was met with some problems, it was thought that the service made a promising start during its first week.

The authority's waste and development manager, Rob Kitchen, said: "I am very pleased with the number of recycling boxes that were collected this week and the participation rate has been great, which is very positive.

"There were a couple of negative points at the beginning of the week as quite a few people put their grey residual waste bins out when they weren't supposed to, but most of them had been taken in by Wednesday.

"And we have also found that a few people had not received their grey bins, so we are now delivering those as fast as we can."

There are four waste collection crews working around the Kendal area, who deal with the alternate fortnightly collections of recycled materials and residual waste.

"The recycling bins have been very full this week, as we find that a lot of people do collect a lot to begin with," said Mr Kitchen. "Crews have also taken a lot of overspill that people had left in bags. "

Anyone who has not received their recycling boxes or grey wheelie bins or requires extra recycling boxes or information on collections should contact 0845-050-4434.