HEREFORDSHIRE Council has signed a £28 million waste collection contract which will keep weekly rubbish collections.

Councillor John Jarvis, cabinet member for environment, said the contract gave the county “exactly what it asked for” after consultation showed strong support for weekly collections with more recycling.

Starting in November, the contract is with current council partner FOCSA and is worth £4 million a year over seven years. Key elements include: 1: Weekly rubbish collections will stay.

2: Twice yearly provision of 26 household black bags with with householders responsible for any more bags.

3: Fortnightly doorstep collection of recyclables in wheelie bins from 95 per cent of county households against the current 72 per cent.

4: A big cut in rubbish the county sends to landfill, which could cost the council £1.6 million a month in government-imposed fines if nothing is done by 2016.

The council has met its 2008/2009 recycling target but can’t afford a let-up. Latest figures show the county is recycling or composting 34.2 per cent of domestic waste against a 32 per cent target, but the 2010 target is 40 per cent.

Missing that means massive fines, which could mean cuts in services, or increased council tax, or both.

Herefordshire produces 90,000 tonnes of waste a year but it’s likely more than a fifth of that could be recycled.

The council also faces huge monthly fines if it can’t cut the amount of waste going to landfill in Worcestershire.

The council’s cash for trash woes began in 1998 when the authority signed a 25-year contract with Worcestershire County Council that made Mercia Waste Management responsible for rubbish disposal across both counties.

Herefordshire continues to use landfill over the border.

By 2003, the council was aiming for a recycling plant at Madley but protest group Waste Watchers twice challenged this in the High Court. Eventually, in 2008, the Court of Appeal ruled against Waste Watchers and awarded costs.

By August, the council had agreed a trade-off between keeping weekly rubbish rounds and extra recycling.

To put the emphasis on collection, the council’s trash team went back to basics, dumping previous disposal proposals and promising a kerbside recycling service that reached almost every home through fortnightly rounds.