Households could have seven bins each under new plans to nationalise rubbish collection.
The government wants to standardise waste collection across the UK by 2023/24 under the new Environment Bill.
But the District Councils’ Network (DCN), which represents 183 councils in England, has warned this could be chaotic for some households with people possibly needing more bins than ever before.
The plans could see households need four separate bins for dry recyclables – glass, metal, plastic, paper and card – as well as waste collectables for garden waste, food waste and non-recyclables - reports Mirror Online.
The DCN has slammed the proposals as “poorly thought out” and said some families may not have the space for the extra bins.
The extra collection vehicles could also cause congestion on the road, as well as costing an eye-watering £680million every year, says the DCN.
The DCN is calling for local councils and communities to be able to decide how they want their waste collected.
Councils are set to pick up food waste, glass and recyclables weekly by 2023, with fears there could be a knock-on effect of delaying collection of 15.5 million tonnes of ordinary rubbish a year.
Most of the UK’s 341 local authorities have changed to fortnightly pick-ups because of austerity cuts, with just 67 councils able to keep up weekly collections.
Cllr Dan Humphreys, DCN’s lead member for enhancing quality of life, said: “These proposals are poorly thought out and will create costly chaos and confusion up and down the country.
“Rather than standardise waste collections, local communities should be able to decide what works best for them.
“What works for residents in villages and rural areas won’t work for people living in flats in a busy town or city.
“It is also wrong that those without gardens are contributing towards the costs of garden waste collections for those who do.”
A spokesperson from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs said that in circumstances where it is not practical to have as many as seven bins, local authorities may collect recyclable waste from two or more waste streams together.
Councils will be required to complete a written assessment before deciding on these exceptions.
The spokesperson said: "We are going further and faster to recycle more of our waste to protect the environment - less than 10% of household waste is now going to landfill and the amount of food waste being recycled is up by over 40% since 2015.
“But we must do more, and through our major reforms of kerbside collections we will boost recycling levels and step up our war on plastic pollution – while our proposed weekly food waste collections will maximise recycling and stop the build-up of smelly waste around homes.”
