Recycling officers from Northampton Borough Council yesterday picked up 20.75 tonnes of plastic from the town's eastern district.

The massive collection of bottles weighed in at two tonnes more than on a usual week.

Councillor Trini Crake (Lib Dem, Boughton Green), the council's cabinet member for the environment, said: "I understand people are concerned about the extra bottles they're going to have to dispose of because of the current water situation.

"As always, our recycling collectors will continue to take as many plastic bottles as people put out for recycling.

"We did expect to have a lot more plastic bottles to dispose of because of the current water situation, but this won't affect our recycling collection.

"If your recycling box is full, just put your empty bottles in a carrier bag, not a black sack, so as not to be confused as rubbish, and put it out for collection as normal.

"To help make room in your box squash your empty bottles if you can."

Every tonne of plastic is made up of about 20,000 plastic bottles.

This would suggest households in the eastern areas of the town recycled over 40,000 extra plastic bottles this week.