Wandsworth Council will not fine residents who do not recycle, it said this week.

The council said it was against the Government's new "pay-as-you-throw" scheme, which gives councils the power to charge households who produce too much waste.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) this week introduced a pilot scheme allowing local authorities to charge householders up to £50 if they did not recycle their rubbish.

The Government needs to reduce the amount of waste going to landfill or it faces £180m a year in EU environmental taxes.

But Wandsworth said it did not see any benefit in the scheme.

The council's head of waste management, Richard Hobbs, wrote to Defra saying: "Instead of bullying residents into recycling, authorities should be enabled to introduce simple and easy schemes to collect more materials. Local authorities do not need this new power."

Mr Hobbs said threatening residents with bin searches and on-the-spot fines would lead to more flytipping, burning of rubbish and other illegal practices that harmed the environment.

"The Wandsworth view is recycling must be made easy because then the public will respond positively," he said. "With 25 per cent turnover of residents we need to keep it simple so that newcomers can understand what is required of them."

Councillor Malcolm Grimston, cabinet member for environment, said: "We think it's better to work with people, for example by noting the houses that don't seem to be recycling and dropping a note round saying, are you aware this is dead easy to do?"

He added: "We'll keep an eye on it but at the moment I'm far from convinced. If it does work, we'll look at it again."

  • What do you think? Do you agree with the council or should people be charged for how much rubbish they throw away? Post your comments below.