The Ross Community Litter Clean-Up Crew (RCLCUC) have issued a warning to local residents who may think they are allowed to leave rubbish at sites allocated for litter collected using the purple bag scheme.These purple bags are supplied by Herefordshire Council to residents to clean up Ross-on-Wye.RCLCUC litter picked the hospital grounds and surrounding areas in Ross-on-Wye on Sunday, May 26th, and were dismayed to find that several black sacks of rubbish had been added to their collection illegally.

The team left 11 bags in a Council allocated litter drop off point for collection by Balfour Beatty. An unknown person or group of people then left five bags of household waste in black bin bags.

Wendy Salter, of the RCLCUC, said: "This is not on! The drop off points are for litter collected by the group and solo pickers, using the correct bags to identify. If the system is abused like this we are at risk of all the drop off points being removed.

"Please - all the members of this group are amazing - if you know who is taking advantage of our hard work - please have a word with them!"

The crew understand that Balfour Beatty will be opening the bags to trace the origin as this waste will be fly tipping and could lead to prosecution.

Herefordshire Council has been contacted for further comment.