Monmouthshire residents could be fined £100 for breaking recycling rules, after council bosses pushed to hand tough powers to new ‘Enforcement Officers’.

New measures could see the Enforcement Officers dish out heavy fines for fly-tipping, littering and dog-fouling, as well as striking businesses who break public health and safety rules.

Powers to hit residents with £100 fines could stretch to cover bins being left out on the wrong day, or if residents who leave refuse bags outside of wheelie bins.

A council report says fines will be issued to residents who fail to ‘deposit waste appropriately’. Offences include: contaminating waste bins, failing to cover waste properly and leaving bulky items in public spaces.

A new team of Enforcement Officers, taken from the existing waste management team, will be given powers to investigate a wide remit of environmental issues, serve notices, hand out fines to offenders, and even prosecute necessary cases.

The system would offer some leeway, with officers serving warning notices for first-time offenders and offering extra guidance on waste matters. Repeated offences would garner a fine.

The new powers will also fall on businesses who fail to comply with regulations. Currently, firms who flout the law can be fined or prosecuted. New options sought by MCC would strengthen officers to serve notices and issue fines, powers which are ‘seldom used’ at current.

EHOs would also gain controversial ‘stop and search’ powers, to work alongside police, the DVLA, and other agencies, to tackle illegal waste transportation, which is linked with stolen property, metal theft, benefit fraud and tax evasion.

A Cabinet meeting discussed the proposals last Tuesday. Officials at MCC were keen to stress fines would be used as a ‘last resort’, to encourage ‘a minority’ to comply with waste rules.

Carl Touhig, recycling and business strategy manager at MCC, said the measures were not a revenue-generating effort, but a measured response to ‘a lot of’ community complaints.

“Most of the complaints we get are from residents fed up with neighbours not doing their bit. For the first time last quarter, we achieved a 70 per cent recycling rate. That is a really great effort.

“It’s not fair that most are doing all they can, whilst a minority are not. The extra staff will help with some of the issues we face, people putting bags out four days early, for example.

Mr Touhig insisted that fines would be handed out only in cases where no other option was available; citing current arrangements where officers are powerless to go beyond offering advice to offenders.

“What we do currently is to speak with residents, explain what needs to be done. We then go back a few weeks later to make checks. But, at the moment, we have got no power to do anything else.

“We are not looking for any over-the-top enforcement. We just need to be able to tackle the issues our residents have raised.

“It will be education first, which should increase awareness. Enforcement of fines would be the very very last option for us.

“We are there to help, and be fair. We don’t want to become the Bin Police, by any means, but a power to issue a fine, in the very last resort, could help encourage the minority.

“This is all about being able to tackle the few causing problems for our communities. I must stress: it is a few, rather than many,” he said.

Councillor Bryan Jones, Monmouthshire’s cabinet member for waste and recycling, praised Monmouthshire residents for achieving a national top-three recycling rate.

“The success of our recycling system is down to a population willing to grab it with both hands and pitch in. There will be always one or two who may need a little more encouragement. Any fines would be a very last resort, I assure you.

“We are more inclined to educate and persuade, rather than resort to enforcement. We don’t have the recycling rates we do through forcing people.

“It’s just an option for us to work with the very smallest of minorities,” he said.

Monmouthshire is consistently in the top three recycling counties in Wales, with almost three quarters of waste from the area being recycled.

Recycling for April to June this year hit a Wales-high 70 percent, embedding the county in the top three authorities across Wales.