At present the cost of picking up and disposing of the city’s domestic rubbish is met by a rates charge, with the Council’s coupon scheme being used to distribute a set number of rubbish bags to each property.

If an off-rates scheme is approved, it is likely to start in 2004 and should almost halve the estimated rates rise for that year – from around 7 per cent to around 4 per cent.

City Councillors will soon be asked to consider a range of off-rates rubbish schemes, says Cr Denis O’Rourke, who is backing the push for change. Among the schemes likely to be considered is a system of official bags available for purchase, or buying stickers to put on a range of bags.

All schemes, he says, will be a direct encouragement to keep down the amount of rubbish households generate.

“We’ve had the waste minimisation and recycling efforts going for a while now but we still have a situation where everyone gets the same amount of bags even if they only use half of them,” he says. “By buying only as many as you need, you can decide yourself how many you want and see directly how much it costs to collect and dispose of every bag you put out.”

Cr O’Rourke says the change is in line with national and local government policy. “The Government has a policy of Waster Pays; it’s their term. And in our Waste Plan we are committed to a zero waste target,” he says. “We’re trying for a 65 per cent reduction by 2020 and we want to do better than that if we can.