Councillor Alasdair Christie is concerned that Inverness Leisure's decision to take away four bins from the car park and entrance could lead to litter still being dropped and blown into the neighbouring Floral Hall, Bught Park and Canal Park playing fields.

Around one million visitors a year use the leisure centre and Aquadome, which regularly hosts regional competitions and events.

The bins have been removed because managers say they were being filled with rubbish by people who are not using the centre and were attracting seagulls.

It is hoped the move will also encourage centre users to recycle their litter in bins within the building and also reduce the amount of rubbish being left outside.

But Councillor Christie (Inverness West) is worried it could backfire.

"In an area like the Bught Park and Ness Islands we have to take extreme care that we don't do anything that detracts from the natural beauty of the area and therefore should be providing litter bins," he said, insisting he fully backed the recycling initiative.

"The removal of the litter bins is only going to lead to littering. It will creative a negative and not very pleasing impression when people come to Inverness to use the facilities."

Fellow ward councillor Pauline Munro welcomed the move, but hoped the situation would be monitored closely.

Dedicated recycling points have been set up throughout the sports centre, with bins for paper and plastic bottles around the facility's gym.

The centre's 10-member Green Team - aimed at making the facilities cleaner and more environmentally friendly - will trial the bin removal for three months.

"We would often see people parking in our car park and actually cleaning rubbish out of their cars into our bins," said clerical assistant Ivana Curuvija, Green Team organiser.

"We would regularly find boxes and packets from fast-food outlets lying about around the bins, which obviously had not been sold from within Inverness Leisure.

"So we were concerned that we were actually putting other people's waste to landfill."

Centre general manager James Martin promised staff would replace the bins if required.

"Although some of our customers may see the steps the Green Team have taken as quite radical, there is no point in creating this type of group and then vetoing any of their decisions and I believe that, based on others' experience, this could actually work," he said.

He explained the move would save money because less waste meant fewer skips would be hired for its removal.

andrew.dixon@inverness-courier.co.uk

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