CONTROVERSIAL new alternate bin collections will start this month.

The scheme, which the council claims will save an estimated �500,000 a year, will see Welwyn Hatfield residents have to keep THREE wheelie bins, for rubbish and recycling.

Welwyn Hatfield Council has written to residents informing them of the changes, which were mooted in August.

All households will have three bins – one for waste, one for dry recyclables such as glass, tin, paper and plastic and their existing brown bin for green, cardboard and food waste.

But the �3.4m scheme, which the council says is a necessity because of spiralling landfill charges, was not welcomed in all quarters.

One Panshanger resident said: “I think it’s ludicrous.

“All these bins are going to turn us into ‘Bin Alley’.

“It’s elderly people I feel sorry for.

“You have to have the bins out by 5am, but you can’t put them out before 5pm.

“When this starts there’s just going to be bins everywhere.

“And that food waste collection being once a fortnight, well, in the summer months it’s going to honk.”

She added: “We pay our council tax for them [the council] to do their jobs, but we’re doing their jobs for them by separating everything.”

The joint council/Serco leaflet addresses concerns over “unsightly” bins.

It reads: “On collection day, bins will be unavoidably visible.

“However, residents are expected to store the bins on their property at all other times.”

The leaflet makes the case for bins as “secure containers to store rubbish and recycling will be better than torn bags, spilt rubbish and litter”.

A timescale for the changes has been unveiled by the council and includes, in late January, collection day for rubbish, recycling and compost will change.

Leaflets will be delivered advising householders of the change and their new collection dates.

The new system is expected to be fully under way by late February/early March.

Welwyn Hatfield Council leader John Dean said the strategy was “a better way of providing the services and saving money at the same time”.

He added: “The fact is that we make over a quarter-of-a-million pounds of savings per year, which can help our budget; rather than make cuts on frontline services, this is one way we can do that.

“It also improves our recycling percentage and it will also enable us to introduce plastic recycling, which people have been asking for for a long time.”