Race relations organisations in Reading have hit out at the council for their negative stereotyping of the Black and Asian communities and have demanded that the council cease "black bin" collections immediately.

Their spokesperson said: "The council is giving out the wrong message to residents of Reading. If nothing is done to replace them, we will be referring the council to the police for encouraging people to consider all things black as trash. £1.4m to replace them all is a small price to pay for good race relations."

The council has denied that the colour coding of the bins has anything to do with the preferred contents.

"We don't have black bins, they are grey. They may have beeen black once but after a few years in the sun they aren't any more. Even so, the colour of a bin is not indicative of its contents. Green bins are for landfill waste only and not for residents to dispose of their unwanted Rob White's. However, if anyone does need to dispose of any empty north American natives, they should take them to the facility at Smallmead for recycling."