PLANS to replace all Wirral's green "general waste" bins with slimline ones as part of scheme to force residents to recycle more look set to cost the taxpayer around £1.5m.

The council says it needs to improve recycling rates and is proposing to introduce a weekly food food waste collection service - a major consultation exercise is currently underway asking for householders' views.

The move would see residents given a small caddy-sized food bin which would be collected every week.

But while the scheme may prevent the authority being hit by Government landfill fines, it will also mean the existing green general waste bins will be almost halved in size or collected only once every three weeks.

The green bins Wirral uses at present hold 240 litres of rubbish while the slimline version contains 140 litres.

Oxton Councillor Stuart Kelly has been told in an email from a council official that the total cost of reducing the size of the bins could be more than £1.5m.

He is campaigning against the changes and has launched an online protest petition which now has more than 2,500 signatures.

Councillor Kelly said: “It is incredible that at a time of tight budgets the Labour-run council are fine with spending this amount of money on green bins.

“The cost of this has only now been disclosed after questions I have been asking - but this information should have formed part of the consultation so people taking part know all the facts.

“I would suggest the first fact is the introduction of food waste collection does not require smaller green bins or a three weekly collection.

“The second fact is that the £1.5m may come out of a council reserve set aside for ‘waste initiatives’ but that doesn’t mean that the council should ‘waste’ it on this scheme."

The email received by Cllr Kelly says money to pay for the bins has been made available through Merseyside Waste & Recycling Authority’s Waste Development Fund.

The new bins will cost between £11 and 13 each and the town hall reckons it will need 135,000 of them.

Wirral Council's recycling chief Cllr Bernie Mooney said: "The majority of the green bins currently in use are over 20 years old and are getting tired and broken.

"At the moment, residents must pay £37 to supply a new bin or replace an old or damaged one.

“Yes, the initial cost to replace all of these bins will be high, but there should be a saving in replacements and disposal costs for future years. have capital funding we can use on an ‘invest to save’ basis as a result of reallocated Waste Development Fund so this will not impact on the wider council budget."

She added: ”Recycling at least 50% of household waste is an absolute requirement for all local authorities by the year 2020…not just Wirral, but every local authority.

"If we don’t, at the very least we will face a significant increase in the levy we pay for waste disposal, which already costs us more than £15m every year, and there could be further sanctions.

"At present our rate is around 37% so it is clear a major change is needed now."

Click here to read Cllr Mooney's column explaining her views on the recycling scheme.