BLAENAU Gwent Council’s plan to collect rubbish every three weeks rather than every two weeks as now could move a step closer later this month.

If it goes ahead, the change will cost between £3.8 and £4.3 million but the council would hope to claw back between £150,000 and £250,000 a year from selling on residents’ recycling and making other efficiencies in their service.

The authority hopes the move will be brought in next April and its executive will be asked to pass the plan at a meeting on Wednesday. Measures also include bringing back recycling boxes instead of the bags currently used. Recycling vehicles would also be replaced with others that allow recycling at roadsides.

Any service change will be funded by a Welsh Government £2 million capital grant – which is subject to it being passed by the executive – and borrowing against an annual saving in the revenue budget which is expected to cost £370,000 a year for six or seven years.

But the move was met negatively in Ebbw Vale.

The owner of Mel Morgan Sports on Church Street in the town said he was concerned there would be more vermin raiding the county’s towns if waste is collected less frequently.

“We had £1,000 worth of damage when rats got into the electrics and bit through the cables. I think that’s a lot to do with rubbish not being picked up.”

And Lee Coombs, also from Ebbw Vale, was critical of the mooted change. He said: “I think if that’s happening when we are paying the same amount of council tax, then it’s bad.”

The council has said if their service does not change they could be fined by the Welsh Government if they do not reach new recycling targets.

They already collect recycling – and items such as batteries, small electrical items and textiles – once a week and this would continue.

In 2009 the Argus reported the council bought 29,000 recycling bins at a cost of £551,150, which were later replaced with the plastic recycling bags.

The council’s food waste is sent to Geneco in Avonmouth for reprocessing and garden waste is delivered to waste management firm Viridor in Somerset.