A COUNCIL'S policy of posting bin bags out to residents has been slammed for increasing rubbish and wasting money.

Environmental campaigners say that it would make more sense for Pendle Council to ask its bin men to leave additional bin bags rather than post them out when requested.

In the last 12 months the council has spent more than £1,000 sending out additional orange household waste bin bags to almost 1,300 residents who don't have a wheelie bin.

The council refuses to pick up ordinary black bin bags and says that if residents were given additional required orange bags they would be deterred from recycling.

But Brian Jackson, Pendle co-ordinator for Friends of the Earth, said bosses should make sure the correct infrastructure was in place before refusing to take rubbish away.

He said: "If they are collecting the rubbish why can't they leave enough bags?

"Posting them out does not seem to be economical especially with the increase in postage for large parcels. Surely it would be a better system if people could ring the council and then bags could be left when the collections are done "If people in areas with no wheelie bins are putting their rubbish out in bags or other receptacles they should be collected.

"The council are discouraging them from being tidy and encouraging them to fly tip.

"It is like making people leave their cars at home and take public transport when there is no public transport.

"If the council are going to be picky they should re-examine their policy to establish a Pendle-wide system."

The borough's new system of fortnightly rubbish collections was introduced in June 2005.

However, 1,281 households, such as flats, cannot take part in the scheme because of access problems.

Instead, residents are given four orange bin bags for the fortnight when binmen collect their rubbish.

Residents have complained that they are often left with only two bags for the two weeks, and if they need more, they have to phone the council, and have four new bags posted to them.

One resident, who asked not to be named, said: "We usually only get two left for us. I do recycle but that's just not enough and we have to go on our hands and knees begging for some more when we run out. The whole thing's ridiculous."

Councillor Mohammad Iqbal, leader of the Labour group, said: "This is just another example of the ludicrous things that are going on within the council.

"It demonstrates to me that there is no common sense approach in anything that they do."

Ian McInery, of Operational Services, said the solution of simply leaving more bags would not help, and that posting them out was the most cost-effective way of getting extra ones to householders.

He said: "We can't just give them out willy-nilly. If we sent out more then people would think they needed to fill them up.

"Four sacks will hold the same amount of rubbish as the wheelie bins so they are getting the same service as everyone else.

"We monitor how many bags they are using very, very closely to make sure people aren't throwing too much waste out. Even though they do not have the doorstep scheme, they are expected to recycle too."

Blackburn, Darwen and Hyndburn's councils said they had never sent bags through the post, but Burnley and Rossendale councils said they had posted recycling bags to new residents to ensure that they could get on with recycling straight away.

No council other than Pendle said it had used the post to distribute bags for ordinary waste.