So many people are doing their bit for the environment that the city's recycling team cannot keep up.

Recycling has proved so popular that bins in the car park of the Somerfield supermarket in Headington, Oxford, have been full to overflowing.

Many people who have arrived with recyclable rubbish have found the plastic bells already full to the brim and have had to leave their waste piled up on the floor.

As a result the car park has become littered with bottles, papers, plastic and cardboard.

Liberal Democrat city councillor for Headington, Stephen Tall, said: "In many ways, this is a great problem to have.

"The Headington recycling centre is proving so popular, the city council is struggling to keep up with the demand.

"What would be more serious is if residents stop going there because the recycling banks are always full to overflowing.

"I've asked the city council to make sure they are keeping pace with this demand to recycle, either by collecting at peak times or increasing the frequency of collections.

"The message from me is, carry on recycling."

Unfortunately, Mr Tall added, the mess has encouraged other people to use the site as a general dumping ground for rubbish.

Mr Tall has suggested that the number of collections should be increased, or the collection days changed to make sure the bins are emptied ahead of the weekend rush.

He said that would prevent the recycling point becoming unmanageable.

But a spokesman for the city council said that extra capacity should solve the problem.

She said: "To cope with the additional demand for plastic recycling we will be placing another recycling bell at the Somerfield site.

"We empty these bells twice a week and we have found them to be extremely popular."

The spokesman said the council was also looking into the cost of buying metal containers to replace the existing plastic recycling bells after several of them were destroyed in an arson attack.

Although the burned bins have since been replaced, the metal ones are resistant to fire.