Beware of the cowboy bin police!

The Bin Police will have powers to slap £100 on-the-spot fines on householders who put out rubbish too early or leave their bin lids open.

And they will be set quotas for handing out penalties - raising fears that they will behave like the notorious cowboy car-clamping gangs loathed by motorists.

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The wardens are the latest development in the drive to wipe out weekly rubbish collections which inspired the Daily Mail's Great Bin Revolt.

David Miliband's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has already laid the groundwork for council rubbish collection to be handed to non-elected quangos which are bound to seek fortnightly collections as this would cut costs.

Yesterday it was revealed that Defra gave councils the go-ahead to set up their own wheelie-bin police in "guidance on the use of fixed-penalty notices for environmental enforcement" smuggled out last month.

As has become usual with key Whitehall moves in the growing controversy over rubbish collections, no public announcement was made.

The Bin Police will wear uniforms and operate in the same way as traffic wardens - but there are no rules to prevent councils hiring illtrained and unsuitable individuals for the job.

The Defra guidelines say that bin wardens must be trained in the law and how to deal with uncooperative or violent householders. But a training course set up by the department itself lasts no more than four days.

Mr Miliband's guidelines set out that a council can ask police community support officers to do the job "or it could authorise contracted external staff to undertake the work on its behalf".

Defra recommends that wardens should have passed criminal records checks. But there are no firm rules to insist that these are made.

The guidelines say: "An authority might want to set targets for the number of fixed-penalty notices that it issues for a particular offence in a given year."

They add that councils can use the money raised from fines to pay their wardens.

"Revenue raised will often be an income stream for the service that generates it."

The legal basis for bin wardens was laid down in the 2005 Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act, which gave councils powers to slap fixed-penalty fines on those who break environmental laws.

The Act - brought in to coincide with the abandonment of weekly rubbish collections by nearly 150 councils covering a third of the population - said fines of typically £100 should be applied to those littering, spraying graffiti or allowing their dog to foul the pavement.

In law, littering includes putting out household rubbish at the wrong time or place. And the onthe-spot fines can also be applied to householders who break the 1990 Environmental Protection Act, which sets £100 fines for misuse of "waste receptacles".

The £100 on-the-spot fines faced by those breaking the rules are higher than the £80 given to shoplifters.

Hugh McKinney of the National Family Campaign said: "There are no rules here to stop councils using cowboy bin police.

"The victims of this proposal will often be families with young children who have more rubbish than anyone else and who will be the easiest to find and pick on."