COUNCIL workers have been secretly taking rubbish bags from residents’ wheelie bins and sifting through their contents.

The £70,000 'rubbish audit', carried out by Lancashire County Council to identify ‘waste patterns’, has been attacked as ‘a gross invasion of privacy’ and ‘sneaky’.

Another critic said it was a massive waste of taxpayers' money.

And the council has been branded 'nosey parkers' for ‘snooping’ through the household waste.

The ‘audit’ comes two months after it was revealed Blackburn with Darwen Council staff had been using ladders to ‘snoop’ over garden walls in the search for ‘unauthorised’ second wheelie bins.

Mark Wallace, of the Tax Payers Alliance said: “This is a lot of money to spend purely on being nosey parkers.

"People want their bins collecting promptly and regularly, not being rooted through by council officials.

"Given the council's financial problems they should save this money and use it to reduce costs elsewhere.”

Ten staff have targeted 400 unsuspecting households in the county council area covering Burnley, Pendle, Rossen-dale, the Ribble Valley and Hyndburn.

Council bosses did not make their project public.

They said they did not need householders’ consent as the rubbish bin and its contents became their property when it was put out on the street.

A council spokesperson said that residents were also not told that they were being audited because ‘it might skew results’ if they started to act conscientiously as a result of knowing they were being studied.

Details of the audit only emerged after a Burnley woman saw men putting her bin bags into a council van.

The council said that for two weeks it had targeted a range of homes across the county in a bid ‘to build up a picture of any emerging trends in items being thrown away by residents’.

It will also spend five weeks analysing items thrown away at eight household waste recycling sites.

Residents are not told their rubbish has been taken unless they spot workers and ask them what they are doing.

They are then given a verbal explanation and are also sent a letter from the council.

Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: “This is a gross invasion of privacy.

"Unfortunately, councils will go to any lengths in the name of improving recycling, at great expense. It is also very sneaky.”

County Coun Tony Martin said: “We go out and evaluate waste.

"We are trying to find out the quantity and the quality of things being thrown away to see if the message of reduce, reuse and recycle is getting through.”