AN INNOVATIVE new project to seek the best way to turn household waste into valuable compost is to be tested by the council at the end of the month.

Bath & North East Somerset Council will test methods of getting rid of waste in an effort to cut down on the volume of rubbish dumped in landfill sites.

The new methods involve giving residents a bin or sack in which to place un-cooked food and garden waste or cardboard, or a combination of both.

B&NES will introduce the schemes to 22 areas, covering approximately 3,500 properties, to see which scheme works best.

The council estimates over a third of our rubbish could be composted rather than put into a landfill, where it produces dangerous greenhouse gases.

It said the compost will be sent for composting to Hinton Organics, near Keynsham, to then be sold on to local farms.

Sarah Raban, waste campaigns officer for the project, which is set to run for 12 months, said: "These trials should help to dramatically reduce the amount of rubbish that people throw away, especially where people are already using the green box recycling collections."

The money for the trials is coming from the SITA Environmental Trust, an independent agency that uses tax money raised from landfills to pay for green projects in the UK.

Andy Saunders, project manager at SITA, said: "We hope this initiative will raise greater awareness about the importance of recycling.

"We throw away thousands of tons of waste in Bath every year and not only can we reduce that which will use up landfill sites but we will also get a useful product out of it at the the end."