Bin police to slap you with fines

An army of wardens will enforce the rigorous rules which go with fortnightly rubbish collections.

The bin police will have the powers to slap £100 on-the-spot fines on householders who put out rubbish too early or leave the lid open.

And they will be set quotas for handing out penalties – raising fears that they will behave like car-clamping gangs.

The wardens are the latest development in the drive to end weekly rubbish collections. Fortnightly collections of general refuse are being used by as many as four in 10 of councils in England.

They include South Staffordshire, Cannock Chase, Lichfield, Stafford and Wyre Forest.

Wolverhampton, Walsall, Dudley and Sandwell are currently committed to weekly collections.

David Miliband's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has already laid the groundwork for council rubbish collection to be handed to non-elected quangos, which could seek fortnightly collections to cut costs.

Yesterday it was revealed that Defra gave councils the go-ahead to set up their own wheelie bin police in guidance on the use of fixed penalty notices for environment enforcement smuggled out last month.

As has become usual with key Whitehall moves in the growing controversy over rubbish collections, no public announcement was made.

The Bin Police will wear uniforms and operate in the same way as traffic wardens – but there are no rules to prevent councils hiring ill-trained and unsuitable individuals for the job.

The Defra guidelines say that bin wardens must be trained in the law and how to deal with unco-operative or violent householders. But a training course set up by the department itself lasts just four days.

Mr Miliband's guidelines set out that a council can ask police community support officers to do the job or it could authorise contracted external staff to undertake the work on its behalf.

Defra recommends that wardens should have passed criminal records checks. But there are no firm rules that inists they have to be made.