BLAENAU Gwent Council is staring down the barrel of more than £3 million in fines in the next five years unless they can bring their recycling figures up to scratch.

With new targets from the Assembly coming for 2009/10, the council is way off the 40 percent recycling target for the Landfill Allowance Scheme (LAS).

Any waste sent to landfill over this is punished with a £200 per tonne fine in a bid to make councils as eco-friendly as possible and reducing the amount of rubbish sent to rapidly-filling landfill sites.

The council recycled 26.69 percent or ?? of its waste in the first quarter of 2009/10. Neighbouring Caerphilly council recycled 39.32 percent, or 10,066 tonnes from a possible 25,597, over the same period.

Projections by the council’s corporate director of the environment, Gary Samuel, show the council will send 1,075 tonnes more to landfill than they are allowed next year.

This will get steadily worse until estimates suggest by 2014, the council will be 4,606 tonnes over its target for that year.

By this time, it will have sent 16,573 tonnes to landfill over its allowance, resulting in fines totalling £3,314,600.

To stop this happening, the council sent officers to knock on doors throughout the borough, telling about the forthcoming switch to fortnightly rubbish collections.

As reported in the Argus, the council is introducing wheelie bins throughout the borough at a cost of £551,150 following a trial scheme in Beaufort and Brynmawr.

This will coincide with the move to fortnightly bin collections, starting early next year.

A Blaenau Gwent spokeswoman said: "The wheeled bins and our improved recycling service should help us to greatly reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill - and prevent avoidable increases in waste disposal costs."

People from the council’s waste and recycling team are also going to more PACT, community and town council meetings to tell people about the change.

An advertising campaign is also being run to highlight the issue.

Caerphilly council also recycled the highest amount of waste across Gwent in 2008/09.

Figures from the Environment Agency Wales show the authority recycled and composted 22,643 tonnes compared with Blaenau Gwent’s 5,341 tonnes.

LAS limits the amount of biodegradable waste such as paper, cardboard and food councils are allowed to send to landfill.

It was brought in by the Assembly as a way of enforcing the importance of recycling to local authorities.