A Labour councillor has accused Dublin City Council of "deliberately contaminating" waste by disposing of both non-recyclable brown bin and recyclable green waste together.

Eric Byrne, who represents the Terenure area in Dublin, has placed an emergency motion to Dublin City Council stating: "It comes as a matter of great shock to learn that Dublin City Council is deliberately contaminating green waste by dumping it with normal domestic waste."

According to Byrne, both forms of rubbish, which are usually collected separately by the council, have been disposed of together, contaminating the recyclable waste. The issue came to Byrne's attention when he began to receive letters of complaints from Terenure residents.

One resident wrote: "I noticed today that the bin collectors emptied my brown bin into the same truck with all the other ordinary bin bags they were collecting. Is this council policy or laziness on the part of the individual bin collector?"

A spokesman for Dublin City Council admitted that despite the stringent council rules which state all waste must be separated for environmental reasons, waste has been contaminated in the Dublin 6 area. He has said the issue has now been resolved.

"Dublin City Council is not deliberately contaminating brown bin waste by dumping it with residual waste.

"Some time ago, a small amount of brown waste in the Terenure area was inadvertently mixed but this problem has now been rectified. Dublin City Council's policy as set out in the waste management plan for the Dublin region is to divert as much waste as possible from landfill," the spokesman added.

Byrne said he is "horrified" at the prospect that the scheme, which is an environmentally friendly initiative, would be undermined by such contamination.