TWO HUNDRED householders in Monmouthshire have agreed to take part in a £60,000 study to find out what is being thrown away.

A research team, funded by the Welsh Government and led by Monmouthshire Council, is checking through a random selection of black bag waste destined for landfill to see how much of it could be recycled.

The study of a random selection of waste will provide baseline data to check the effectiveness of the council’s new waste collection arrangements, which come into force on July 1.

Under the new scheme householders can only put out two council-issued bags of rubbish per fortnight in a bid to reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill.

Cllr Bryan Jones, Monmouthshire Council’s cabinet member for county operations, said: “At the moment we’re spending around £3 million on landfill.

But we knowthat up to 70 per cent of the waste that we send for landfill could be recycled.

“This is bad for the environment and bad financially, as we need to find £14 million of savings in the next three years.”