Dumfries and Galloway Council orders multi-million pound waste bill report

The council is currently planning a new waste collection system across the region

A report has been ordered to reveal the exact multi-million pound cost of waste collection schemes used and abandoned in south west Scotland.

Plans are in place for a new three-wheelie bin system in Dumfries and Galloway at a cost of more than £20m.

A previous attempt to change the service was piloted in part of the region but was ultimately dropped.

Communities committee chairman Andy Fergusson said there was an appetite for full disclosure of the costs.

• How do you end up with 150,000 unneeded bins?

• Bin storage costs exceed £300,000

The report will go back more than a decade to when a new type of waste processing plant was opened in Dumfries.

The Eco Deco project was aimed at helping to meet recycling targets.

An Eco Deco plant made the region one of the few in the UK to have a single bin system

It took household waste and shredded and dried it before separating out anything which could be reused.

In the process it made Dumfries and Galloway one of a handful of councils in the UK operating a single bin system.

However, a change in regulations meant that had to change and plans for a five-container service were hatched.

This was piloted in Wigtownshire in 2014 and more than 450,000 assorted bins, lids and nets were bought in anticipation of it being rolled out across the area.

The extension never happened and the containers have been kept in storage at a cost of hundreds of thousands of pounds ever since.

Plans for a new three wheelie-bin system are now on the horizon.

Thousands of recycling boxes were bought for a waste collection scheme which was never rolled out

A final running total of the overall costs down the years will now be revealed in the report.

"We have agreed to have a root and branch review of the costs from the inception of this," Mr Fergusson said.

"The public, quite rightly, are disturbed to hear lots of different reports, responses, opinions and views.

"I think it is only right that we should have the definitive one."

'Still upset'

He said the report would take some time to deliver.

"I am a realist and I know that people are still upset and people are still angry and want to know where the resources have been spent," he said.

"I think it is an answer that people deserve."

He said the report would detail the costs over the years and what actions had been taken.

However, he added that he felt it was equally important to look forward at how things would be developed in future.