USING broken wine bottles to repair roads may help to cut back on recycling spending in York, according to Liberal Democrat councillors who have asked officers to investigate the idea.

The glass is used in a material called Glasphalt which forms part of the structure of the road beneath the surface.

Manufactured by RMC Aggregates, limestone is mixed with broken green bottles and figures suggest more than 12,000 tonnes of glass could be used if the idea is adopted.

Lib Dem councillors point out that York, which has a recycling rate below the national average, has to pay for glass to be taken from recycling sites around the city because there is so little demand for green glass.

They claim this was the chief cause of the recycling budget overspending by £20,000 last year.

Coun Andrew Waller, shadow executive member for the environment, said: "This new use for glass should be fully explored so that York does its bit to make more use of the materials we are collecting in our recycling sites. We are more likely to have a kerbside collection scheme for all households in the city when there is a market for all the items collected."

Coun Waller will be proposing a motion to the next full council meeting on July 25, asking for the Government to do more to stimulate a market for recycled materials and to let councils directly use landfill tax money to pay for recycling schemes.