The recent decision by the Forest council for mixed green/food waste collection is a mockery of economic wisdom and advice from national waste advisory agency WRAP. WRAP advice based on national and international experience is that mixed collection is not the best way to maximise capture of food waste essential for reducing landfill. There is also mention in the report of a charged green waste collection similar to that in the Cotswolds.

This demonstrates a total lack of technical and financial expertise and understanding of the dynamics of waste collection and human behaviour. Residents interested should look up the fine print in the council report regards amounts of decomposable material that will be left and end up in the fortnightly residual waste collection. This will ultimately impact on their day-to-day management of household waste bins and associated health and safety. I must hasten to add such muddled thinking is not unique to the Forest of Dean.

In the wake of such an ill-conceived collection strategy, at the end of November 2008, laws that allow the Government to impose new charges for household rubbish collections received Royal Assent. Ministers have confirmed that the Office of National Statistics will classify these new charges as a tax. Although bin taxes will be trialled in a series of so-called pilots, the small print of the legislation allows the Secretary of State to roll out and impose the taxes on all local authorities by Order, without any vote in Parliament.

The Government's own impact assessment has predicted that, in due course, two out of three homes will face the new taxes. It is clear that if Labour were to win the next general election, families across the country will be hit with these stealth taxes, on top of council tax.

Official technical documents reveal that the bin taxes will take one of four forms:

•Bin bag tax: Households must pay for special bin bags. Rubbish not placed in a paid-for bag will not be collected.

•Bin size tax: Households will be charged for the size of their bin; with families requiring a bigger bin paying the most.

• Weekly collection tax: Households needing a weekly rubbish collection will pay an extra charge.

•Bin chip tax: Households will receive a bill based on the weight of the contents of their bin, with microchips in the bin feeding through to a central billing database.

These taxes will increase taxes on families (who already tend to pay higher council taxes); will raise the overall tax burden due to the costs of administering and enforcing a new tax; and will harm the environment by fuelling fly tipping and backyard burning.

The Forest of Dean Council is one of the worst amongst rural districts in terms of waste tonnage collected and cost of collection per household whilst being one of the lowest performers in terms of recycling if the free discretionary garden waste collection is dismissed as a perverse means to inflate recycling performance.

The new Government measure will simply encourage councils such as the Forest of Dean to charge their way out of the financial consequences of their poor business skills. More so given that inefficient management and confused spending priorities are already spilling much red ink on council finances around the country. – Cllr Venk Shenoi (Conservative, Huntley and Churcham).