Thousands of homeowners to have bins collected monthly

A COUNCIL has become the first in Britain to collect household waste just once a month in an attempt to force householders to recycle more.

Fife council in Scotland will collect waste destined for landfill 12 times a year as part of a trial in some parts of the district. The scheme started yesterday.

Campaigners have warned that councils must not fail to provide basic services, even when confronted with austerity budgets.

Dia Chakravarty, the TaxPayers’ Alliance political director, said: “Residents pay their taxes to fund basic es- sential services and bin collection is about as basic as it gets.”

Under the pilot scheme, 2,000 houses will have waste collected every four weeks, while another 2,000 will have rubbish picked up every three weeks. Collections of recycled waste will be increased for the duration of the trial which is expected to last at least nine months.

The towns involved are Glenrothes, Markinch, Coaltown of Balgonie and Thornton and Stenton.

Households with larger families and those needing to dispose of medical waste or nappies will be offered larger bins.

Banbridge council in Northern Ireland has experimented with monthly collections but has since reverted to fortnightly collections of waste destined for landfill. “It was a very economical way to go but there were operational difficulties,” said a council spokesman.

Fife council has claimed that half of the waste sent by residents to landfill could be recycled. Officials warned that the cost of waste disposal could jump by £1.5 million annually if action is not taken to increase recycling.