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WORCESTER, Mass. - Starting this Saturday, the City of Worcester will only accept recycling bins with appropriate items in them.

The city said it's in an effort to address the contamination of the recycling stream. DPW Commissioner Jay Fink said the number one issue they see is plastic bags.

Fink said any items left in plastic bags will not be collected. He said if the city can reduce the contamination rate, they can reduce the rate they pay to the recycling facility.

"If we can reduce that contamination rate down, we'll get to the next tier lower and will improve our recycling rate,” Fink said. “It will lessen the cost we have to pay to process materials. The reason the cost goes down is because the processor no longer has to extract material that is within that bulk recycled items. So they can reduce their costs and in turn they turn it back to us and we can reduce our costs.”

The city encourages residents to use their new green bins, which were delivered earlier this year. Fink said items can also be brought to the drop-off center on Millbury Street.