‘Bin police’ dawn raids cost £70,000
TAXPAYERS are being stung with soaring bills to pay for town hall “bin police”.
The cost of “envirocrime” to local authorities has more than doubled and some have recruited officials to snoop in bins.
Yesterday, it emerged that one has spent £70,000 for two “dawn raids” in North Wiltshire to analyse and record the content of wheelie bins.
Susie Squire of the TaxPayers’ Alliance said: “People are sick and tired of being spied on. This initiative amounts to using taxpayers’ cash to snoop on them.”
Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Bin Collections, said: “Have they got nothing better to do than bothering with so-called ‘envirocrime’.”
Andy Conn, of Wiltshire Council, said: “It is very useful to see how much waste of whatever kind is being thrown away so that we know which areas [of recycling] to focus on.
“It would be impossible to isolate… we don’t know which houses the rubbish came from and that’s not what we are interested in.”