Plans to charge supermarkets for dumped trolleys

A council plans to fight “the plague” of shopping trolleys dumped in its rivers and streets by hitting supermarkets harder in the pocket.

Canterbury City Council (CCC) members said the unsightly metal carts are “everywhere and ruining the view”, forcing the authority to clear hundreds in recent years.

In a bid to tackle the problem, it plans to issue supermarkets with heftier fines for the collection, storage and, in some cases, destruction of the trolleys.

Councillor Alister Brady proposed a motion to CCC describing the carts as “the scourge of our city”, while Sainsbury's and Morrison said they took the issue seriously.

Brady said: “It leads to fly-tipping, leads to more rubbish being placed, leads to the area being run down.

“Trolleys abandoned in the Stour are incredibly damaging to wildlife – we’ve got a beaver lodge there and the supermarkets seem to absolve themselves of responsibility.”

In Canterbury and the rest of the district, discarded trolleys are collected by Canenco – the council’s waste management firm – and supermarkets are charged £82.50 if they collect them within six weeks.

If they do not reclaim a trolley within six weeks, CCC destroys it and charges £146.67 instead, said the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

A spokesperson for Morrisons said: “We take this matter really seriously. As soon as we are made aware of any abandoned trolleys, we work alongside Trolleywise (a company which collects lost trollies) to ensure they are returned back to our stores.”

Sainsbury’s expressed similar sentiments, with a spokesperson adding: “We have measures in place to prevent trolleys leaving our estate, including a coin/token operated locking system at our Canterbury store.

“We also work with a specialist contractor to collect trolleys and ask anyone who sees an abandoned one to report it on the TrolleyWise website, or to the store so we can retrieve it as soon as possible.”

Asda and Aldi did not respond to requests for comment.

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