SWINDON councillors will debate tonight whether to dispose of 12 local recycling sites around the borough and offer them to new parish councils to run instead.

If it goes ahead the move could save the authority £25,000 a year.

New controls on commercial waste taken to the Cheney Manor recycling centre are also on the agenda at the cabinet meeting.

The sites, currently run by contractors on behalf of the council, collect around 900 tonnes of glass, cans, paper and Tetrapak cartons each year.

But a report before the committee suggests all of it apart from the cartons can be dealt with using the kerbside collections every fortnight.

Coun Keith Williams, cabinet member for Streetsmart, told the Advertiser: “The sites have been there for a long time, before the household collection system that we have today came into its own.”

He accepted that some households might have more recycling waste like bottles and newspapers than their black boxes could cope with, but he said: “Where people need more recycling boxes we are willing to provide them.”

The cartons could be put into general waste and then converted into solid recovered fuel at the contractor’s Waterside plant.

The mini recycling points, called bring sites by the authority, were also being abused by some people.

“With some of the sites we are finding that people are not just brining items that can be recycled, they are becoming a bit of a magnet for fly-tipping,” he said.

Crews arriving to empty the containers were discovering dumped sofas, TVs and other waste and because their trucks were not equipped to deal with them, other workers were having to be sent to clear them up.

Asked whether removal of the sites might trigger more fly-tipping in the borough, he said: “People who will actually take the trouble to take it to a 'bring' site are not the people who cannot be bothered to recycle.”

The report also recommends new restrictions on waste taken to the borough tip, including asking users to provide evidence that they live in the borough, recording the details of users and introducing a new charge for recycling plasterboard.

If the measures are agreed vans and trailers will be limited to 12 visits a year, loads will be inspected by site staff to ensure they are legitimate household waste and rubbish from properties outside the borough boundaries will be turned away.

Coun Williams said there was an issue with businesses using the site to dispose of commercial waste.

“Only last week one of the crews spotted the same car repeatedly coming to the site," he said.

"They found out it was a restaurant trying to dispose of trade waste. They were stopped and turned away.”

He stressed: “It is just making sure that the service is not abused and that the residents of Swindon, who are paying for it, are getting a good service.”