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They were responding to a consultation by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) on ways to encourage householders to reduce their waste at home and recycle and compost more.

The Government is considering giving local authorities the power to charge people for the amount of non-recyclable waste that they produce and is keen to find out which authorities would be prepared to do this, given the choice.

At last night's meeting, Councillors considered three options relating to the introduction of financial incentives. Although the Council highlighted one option as the best of the three courses of action, it went on to agree that this step could be detrimental to Woking's already highly successful recycling scheme.

At present, the Borough's residents manage to recycle just over 40% of their household waste, a figure which is way above the 30% target specified by the Government. This has been achieved through the wheeled bin scheme and an ongoing programme of education and promotion across the Borough. New initiatives such as on-street bins, Tetrapak (beverage carton) recycling and the prospect of a Boroughwide glass recycling scheme (following the recent successful pilot) will also help Woking people to recycle more in the future.

Talking about Woking's stance on the incentives proposals, Cllr Anne Murray, Woking Borough Council's Portfolio Holder for Recycling and Refuse Collection, said:

?Woking's residents are already making a big effort to recycle their waste and we feel that providing an incentive could change the emphasis of the scheme from an environmental challenge to a financial issue. This could potentially result in increased fly tipping and contamination of the recyclable waste.?

Following last night's discussion, the Council's reluctance to introduce charges for non-recyclable waste will be fed back into DEFRA's consultation for their further consideration.