THE outstanding success of the Forest council's garden rubbish bag pilot collections means green bins could be following within the next two to three years.
Hailing the first three weeks of the 'green bag' service in selected parts of the Dean, the man in charge of environmental services, Amir Razvi, said the only complaints had been from people not in the trial.
"It has proved to be very successful. They want to be included too.
"We have been more than meeting our objectives," he said of the 10,000 properties included in the project, targeted mainly in the north of the district but designed to have an urban/rural balance.
Callers and some letter writers to the Review have asked why plastic bags have been employed rather than bags of biodegradable paper, but Mr Razvi said it was a matter of costs and safety.
"The cost of the green plastic bags is about 5p each to us while the cost of biodegradable material is around 20p a sack. And we had to keep a particular size because of health and safety regulations on the amount people are allowed to lift," he said.
"However, we have found that the handling costs are considerably higher because the plastic bags have to be emptied."
But he said once the pilot had been evaluated bags would in any event be replaced with wheely bins specifically for garden rubbish, part of the council's drive to meet stringent recycling targets set by the government.
Mr Razvi added that the Forest was already recycling more material than most other councils which was why new demands set on top of this meant they had to work harder than most.
And he forecasts that we will all be recycling much more within the next five years to meet Government and European targets.