THE practice of charging for rubbish by weight or by volume is still rare in Europe, but it is emerging in some towns amid mounting evidence that when households have to pay for the rubbish they produce they produce far less of it.

The schemes vary between charging for rubbish bags — essentially charging by volume — to getting rubbish collectors to weigh individual wheelie bins, and then billing households by the kilogram.

In Germany, the Bavarian town of Landkreis Schweinfurt started charging a fee in 1999 of about 14p each time a bin was emptied, on top of a charge of 18p a kilo of rubbish. Houses are then sent an annual bill, which is paid in quarterly instalments. The scheme cut household rubbish by 13 per cent.

In Ghent, Belgium, people have to pay per waste bin collected. The bins are fitted with electronic chips that are automatically read by the rubbish lorries, adding the cost to household accounts. The prices vary between 60p and £3.20 depending on the size of the bin.

In 1996 the authorities in Dillburg, near Brussels, became the first to introduce a collection charged by weight and volume. The residential area charged between 46p and 70p for each bag, but carried out separate — free — collections for recycled waste.

The results were immediate. In 1995 the amount of waste thrown away by each of the town’s 37,600 inhabitants was 336.5kg (740lb). Three years later this had been slashed 60 per cent to 114.8kg (250lb), while recycling rose.

In Brussels, households can dispose of rubbish only in official white bin bags, which they have to purchase from shops, with the cost of disposal included in the price. Bags for recycling, such as blue for plastics and bottles, are cheaper.

A similar scheme was introduced in Torrelles de Llobregat in Spain in 2003, with organic matter, paper and glass collected free in special sacks, and all other rubbish collected in bags costing either 40p or £1, depending on the size. After the charges were introduced, the quantity of household waste dropped by 38 per cent.

One Danish study found that households charged by weight produced 55 per cent less waste and recycled 45 per cent more compared with areas that had a flat charge.

However, areas that charged by volume reduced rubbish by only 13 per cent. A downside to such schemes is that they can encourage illegal dumping. After South Korea introduced a scheme in 1995, fines had to be introduced to clamp down on illegal dumping.

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