THE Torfaen council waste awareness team will be out meeting the residents of Torfaen over the next few weeks to discuss several new waste initiatives due to start in December.

From December the council will no longer return to collect black bins reported as missed by residents and will charge residents £20 for replacing black bins which have been lost or stolen.

The initiatives will save the council around £200,000 a year from its waste budget.

Roadshows have been arranged for November 20 in Morrisons, Cwmbran and November 21 and 29 in the World Heritage Centre, Blaenavon.

At these sessions the waste awareness team will also answer all refuse- related questions and tips and advice on Christmas recycling, Christmas collection schedules, reducing Christmas food waste and where to recycle real Christmas trees.

The executive member for neighbourhood services, Cllr John Cunningham, said: “We make 20,000 black bin collections every week and 99 per cent of these are completed on schedule but we are reminding residents to put their bin out by 7am on their collection day to avoid being missed and to number or personalise their bin to reduce the number lost or stolen.

“We currently recycle 52% of all our waste but the Welsh Government has raised our recycling target to 58% by 2015/16. We also have less money and these new initiatives will reduce the cost to deliver our service and increase the amount of materials recycled.”