Your ideas have been flooding in on how to improve ‘embarrassing’ recycling rates in Kirklees.

Councillors and officers had begun talks about what the future of the waste service should be, with the contract with Sita set for renewal.

And after The Examiner reported on the discussions, more than 100 people contacted us via social media with their thoughts on recycling and waste collections.

The most popular idea to boost recycling by Examiner readers was the return of glass collections, scrapped by Kirklees Council in 2013 when the cost outweighed the gain for the authority.

But others said they needed more information about what could be recycled in the borough, with confusing packaging meaning some recycle the wrong items.

Andy Riley said: “I can only imagine how much glass goes into the grey bin now they’ve gone. Explain the range of things that can be put in green bins – Tetrapacks spring to mind.”

Tetrapacks are cartons which have caps and are not recyclable in Kirklees but are elsewhere.

Paul Miller said he found it “incredible” how little could be recycled when he moved from South Yorkshire.

He said: “Before we moved we had a green bin for cardboard and garden waste, a brown bin for cans, glass and plastics, a blue bin for paper and a grey bin for waste that couldn’t be recycled. The bin collection alternated fortnightly and, much too our initial surprise, were never filled. Why can’t Kirklees follow Barnsley and Sheffield’s example?”

Others said people needed a refresher of what could be recycled locally and instead relied on what the packaging said, not what Kirklees is able to accept.

Barbara Jessop said Kirklees should follow Calderdale’s example and have containers for food waste, while Owen Phillips said Kirklees should collect business recycling.

Last week we reported how Kirklees was considering community-specific waste and recycling collections, with much of the recycling being sorted at the Emerald Street depot run by Sita.

The contract, however, is due to run out in 2022/23 and Kirklees will get a better deal if it begins negotiations or alternative plans in advance.

On Thursday members of the Scrutiny Panel for Development and Environment will discuss household waste and bulky waste collections.

Kirklees refuse collections are in-house with 235 members of staff with 36 collection teams dealing with refuse from 180,000 domestic properties. The average Kirklees route collects waste from 1,300 properties per day.

Examiner readers called for free collections of garden waste and the Scrutiny Panel will be told the last decision was in 2011 when Cabinet agreed a £1 charge per bin bag of garden waste with a minimum collection of £5.

The Scrutiny Panel meets on Thursday at 10.30am and will discuss if they believe any changes should be explored.