'Pay-as-you-throw' bin taxes unfairly target millions of homeowners, says ASDA

The bin taxes will mean that millions of people will be charged unfairly, ASDA said.

Store chiefs said that too many councils fail to recycle bulky and heavy refuse like glass bottles or plastic packaging - but families will still be charged for filling their wheelie bins with them when the taxes come in.

The criticism from the powerful supermarket chain is the first blow against the pay-as-you-throw taxes from commercial or industrial interests.

Until now businesses - including the supermarkets which are frequently accused of generating extra rubbish by using too much packaging material - have stayed out of the controversy.

ASDA corporate affairs director Paul Kelly said: "If you are unlucky enough to live somewhere where plastic or cardboard, or even glass bottles, are not collected by your council, your dustbin is going to be much fuller, much quicker, and weigh more too.

"That's why we strongly oppose the pay-as-you-throw bin tax."

He added: "Until there is a consistent, nationwide approach to recycling, any form of bin tax would be unfair and unjust."

Bin taxes are to be given trial in five as yet unnamed towns and suburbs next year.

They are likely to mean that households which put out more than a set amount of rubbish that cannot be recycled will be charged at least £50 a year and probably more than double that.

Taxes are likely to be collected by charges on the weight of rubbish in wheelie bins - which will be equipped with microchips to identify them. Councils may also charge for extra sacks or containers for rubbish.

Labour's disastrous showing in the local government elections this month is thought to have been partly a result of disaffection among voters at the imposition of unpopular fortnightly bin collection schemes and the threat of bin taxes.

Downing Street said immediately after the poll that bin taxes would be stopped. But Environment Secretary Hilary Benn insists they will come, and next year's pilot projects have not been halted.

ASDA pointed to Whitehall figures which show that while four out of five councils collect metal cans for recycling, and two thirds collect glass, card and plastic bottles, other materials are much less likely to be recycled.

Fewer than a third recycle metal foil, only around one in ten collect other types of plastic, and only one in 20 collect fruit juice and similar cartons.

The store chain said that councils do not care about plastics because Treasury landfill taxes - currently going up by £8 a tonne every year - and European landfill targets measure landfill by weight. Since plastics are light, recycling them is a low priority for town halls.

ASDA said: "Councils chase the heaviest materials, such as paper, card and glass. Plastics, which are light but which account for more than half of all packaging waste, are often ignored and end up in landfill when they could have been recycled."

Mr Kelly added: "Why should one customer be forced to pay more than another simply because their local authority doesn't collect glass bottles, when down the road in a neighbouring town another local authority does?"

Supermarkets have come under pressure from local government as political controversy has grown around rubbish collections. Councils blame them for using too much packaging material and creating unnecessary refuse that has to go to landfill.

Asda said that almost all its packaging - 92 per cent - can be recycled.