A CAMPAIGN and petition against planned changes to the way in which household waste is collected has been started.

The petition against the changes – which include a maximum of two bags of non-recyclable waste a fortnight, the introduction of silver coloured bags and charging for green waste – has already received more than 800 signatures.

Chepstow town councillor Dale Rooke said he was concerned that items that should not be in the bags headed for landfill would be taken out by binmen.

He said, "If the binmen have been told to remove them will they pile them up on the pavement and will the council arrange to have the rubbish picked up?"

But Monmouthshire County Council insists the changes, which are due to start at the beginning of July, will save taxpayers' money and help the environment but will not see the introduction of the 'bin police'.

The council originally was going to introduce transparent bags but has changed it to ones similar to the purple and red recycling sacks already in use.

Abergavenny County Councillor Roger Harris said that he had mixed feelings over the charging issue and said, "The Labour group has not yet discussed the green waste charging proposals.

"Some people were obviously abusing the system before and any attempts to correct this situation will hit everybody.

"A lot of people are choosing to compost their green waste and will not be affected by the new charges. However, until the Labour members have discussed the issue we feel it's too early to say if we support the petition or not."

A Facebook page called 'Monmouthshire Residents Against Waste Charges' has been set up and there is an online petition at avaaz.com.

The council's blog on its website states: "We understand the concerns people have voiced about privacy so we are going to provide bags of a similar grade and opacity to the red and purple recycling bags but without any colour pigment (the bags appear silver in finish without colour pigmentation).

"If you're still concerned about your privacy, you can wrap up items so they remain unseen.

"There has been some confusion about how this will work and whether people will need to put loose rubbish in these bags.

"We know a lot of people already use bin liners and put these in black bags – this practice can continue. All we want is for the recycling that might have gone into those bin liners or black bags to go into the red and purple bags or the food into the caddy.

"We will continue with plans to restrict the amount of bags for waste collection that we collect to two bags per household every fortnight. Our weekly collection of your recycling is still unlimited.

"Limiting the volume of rubbish that a household may put out for collection to two bags every fortnight will be challenging for some households but we also know that 70 per cent of what is in the black bags is recyclable – 34 per cent is food waste and we collect that weekly.

"We will not be leaving rubbish on the streets but after a reasonable settling in period we will visit people who are struggling to meet the two bags per fortnight limit. In exceptional circumstances – for instance if you have many people in your household – people may be allowed to use more than two bags.

"This is not just about increasing reusing and recycling materials, it also makes financial sense

"Materials recycled through the red and purple bags are processed free of charge; every tonne of rubbish that goes to landfill costs us £122."