EXTRA kerbside recycling and a new composting scheme could be rolled out this year as North Wiltshire District Council endeavours to cut landfill and boost its green credentials.

The kerbside collection service, which recycles tins, glass, paper, textiles and foil, could be extended to reach about 95 per cent of the homes across the district in a bid to reach Government targets for reducing waste.

Plans are also afoot to introduce a new green bin scheme, which collects compostable waste, including cardboard.

This would be a voluntary scheme, to be set up on a limited basis, mostly on housing estates at a proposed cost of £30 a household a year for those who want the service with fortnightly

collections.

A pilot scheme has been

running on the Pewsham estate in Chippenham for about ten years.

Now the district council, in partnership with Wiltshire County Council and Hills Waste, which has a composting facility, is planning to acquire 6,000 240-litre bins for collection of green waste.

Coun Sylvia Doubell, lead member for waste and recycling, said she needed to win a budget bid in February for the scheme to go ahead but she was confident the funding would be approved.

"Members would be barking mad not to take this up," she said.

"It's an incredibly good deal and we have every incentive to take it up."

Chippenham town councillor for the Pewsham ward Wilma Anscombe was concerned that introducing a charge for the green collection might reduce the number of people who used it.

"Provided the charge was nominal I don't think this would kill the scheme but I imagine it would affect it," she said.

"It's a good scheme and people really do take part in it, but if they charge for it fewer people might use it."

The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has set targets for local authorities in a bid to cut back on the spiralling amount of waste ending up buried in landfill sites.

North Wiltshire District Council was told to recycle ten per cent of its waste by April 2004 and it exceeded the target, reaching 11.25 per cent.

DEFRA is now awarding the district council a £43,000 recycling grant to recognise the improvement and this money will be ploughed back into the scheme.

The county council is also keen to work with the district council and Coun Doubell said the partnership was critical if they were to meet their next target to recycle 18 per cent of waste by March 2006.

The scheme has to be well planned in advance of the budget bid so plans can progress swiftly if the money is approved.

Kerbside recycling is already available to the majority of homes in the district, including Calne, Chippenham, Corsham, Wootton Bassett and Malmesbury but people in villages and rural areas do not have the service provided.

Some 14,000 extra homes will get kerbside recycling if the plans go ahead, including all but the most remote and inaccessible houses.

This will cost an extra £170,000 including the set-up costs.

Wiltshire County Council has agreed to pay for most of the set-up costs and some of the on-going running costs but the district council needs to commit £56,000 for this phase in addition to the £224,000 a year to run the existing service.

But even this extended service will not be enough to reach the recycling target and the green waste collection has also been proposed.