Fingal County Council has moved from having the cheapest bin charges in Dublin to potentially the most expensive, following its introduction of a new €110 fixed annual charge for bin collections in addition to its €8 per bin charge.
2008 will be the first year Fingal has ever had a fixed annual charge for waste collection. In previous years the local authority only charged per "tag" attached to a black bin each time it was presented for collection.
Fingal is now following in the footsteps of Dublin City Council, which plans to impose a fixed charge of approximately €91 next year (an increase of 3.95 per cent on 2007) and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council which has a fixed charge of €80 annually, but has yet to determine its waste charges for 2008.
South Dublin County Council is now the only Dublin local authority not imposing an annual charge and will provide the lowest cost waste service next year having decided not to increase its bin tag charge of €8 per lift.
Fingal's director of environment PJ Howell said the new charge is necessary to allow the council to expand its brown and green bin services. Until now brown bins, which can be used for food and garden waste, have been distributed to some houses on a pilot basis. The council intends to extend this service to all houses from next year and double the frequency of its green bin service, which accepts certain dry recyclables such as paper, plastic bottles and tin cans, to twice per month.
"We must operate a refuse and recycling service that pays for itself and at the moment it is heavily subsidised," Mr Howell said.
"From 2008 we must introduce a fixed charge of €110 per year on a phased basis, once a household has been provided with the full range of kerbside recycling services, ie the green and brown recycle bins and the black bin for non-recyclable waste."
The introduction of the new recycling services should allow householders to present their black bin - the only one which must have a tag attached - less frequently, thus allowing them to reduce their costs and be more environmentally friendly, Mr Howell said.
However, former Socialist Party TD and chairman of the Anti Bin Tax Campaign, Joe Higgins, said the €110 charge was an environmentally damaging step and amounted to a "recycling tax" on Fingal householders.
"This is a retrograde step for the environment . . . It is a disincentive to separate and recycle waste."
The new charge vindicated the position of the anti-bin tax campaign in 2002 and 2003 which was that local authorities would increase bin charges and was a "serious reneging by Fingal" on its promise that recycling services would be funded from general funds, Mr Higgins said.
Dublin City Council's draft budget for 2008 includes an increase of 3.95 per cent on the fixed charge, and the per lift costs which would bring the charge for emptying a standard bin to about €5.70 per lift in 2008.
Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown may have a cheaper service than Fingal next year, depending on what charges are fixed in its budget. However, it has the most complicated system - charging by weight in addition to its annual and per lift charges.
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