CHARGING people in Oxfordshire based on the weight of their bins could boost falling recycling rates and save the taxpayer millions, council officers have said.

The proposal comes after an investigation into declining recycling rates across the county found that people were either confused about what could be recycled or just apathetic.

It is hoped a renewed focus on education and awareness could clear up the confusion, but officers are also exploring the idea of charging people based on the weight of their bins to encourage them to recycle more and throw away less.

The so-called 'pay as you throw' idea was publicised last month by The Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC).

Introducing such a system would require a change in the law, but LARAC, which represents local recycling officers around the country, urged Government to look into it urgently.

If legislation were introduced to allow councils to charge, it now looks as if Oxfordshire residents could be among the first to pay the price.

County councillor Liz Leffman, who led the countywide investigation alongside recycling officers, said: "Anything that involves extra charging we have to approach with caution: if there is a change in the law that might be a disincentive for people, but what we don't want to do is charge more for recycling if people take large items to recycling centres."

Using population growth estimates, officers said the county's annual waste bill – currently £27m – could increase £10m by 2040.

Oxfordshire has regularly been one of the best at recycling in England, with close to 60 per cent of household waste being recycled, but recent performance reports showed a 'falling trajectory'.

After an extensive investigation into the declining recycling rates, which included digging through bin bags across the districts, Mrs Leffman will present a number of recommendations to the county council's performance scrutiny committee this morning.

She said: "We found that most people want to recycle but there's a lot of confusion about what can and can't be recycled.

"The biggest problem was food waste: if people recycled all the food waste we were finding in their general rubbish we could save £3m per year."

Mrs Leffman also proposed to bring back the Oxfordshire Waste Partnership, which took on communications and education work before it was disbanded in 2014 as part of budget savings.

Her report praised the work carried out by Community Action Group projects, which she said were making a difference despite struggling to reach the 'less engaged and more apathetic population'.

Rina Melendez, founder of one of those groups – SESI Food and Household Refills – warned against a bin weight levy.

Her social enterprise encourages people to bring their own containers to fill with organic food and detergents, which she sells in a bid to cut down on food waste and industrial packaging.

She said: "It shouldn't be a punitive and reactive approach, we have to change the message and look to reward those who are doing the right things.

"We have to be preventive and positive: in northern Italy and Scandinavia, for example, there are areas that reward people for returning bottles.

"There are people in the city and across the county doing great work and if they were rewarded everyone else would follow."

She added that more may need to be done to convey the recycling messages to those in Oxford's diverse communities.

She said: "All the councils' material on recycling is very clear but people are still putting things in the wrong bin.

"Certainly in Oxford there are many multi-cultural communities so maybe we need to make sure the messages are clear for those who don't have English as their first language."

Recycling bosses also said that the Chinese Government's recent decision to ban the import of certain waste products and impose a limit on plastics had increased the pressure on Oxfordshire's recycling efforts.

Earlier this year Oxford City Council, which hit the 50 per cent recycled household waste mark for the first time in August, proposed a raft of new measures to improve recycling in the city.

Measures, such as using images on recycling signs to aid non-English speakers, and offering to collect waste at the end of a students’ tenancy for a one-off fee, will be explored further.

Changes could also be made to the appearance of bins, with a possible new colour scheme and can-shaped holes in recycling bins to be considered.