NEWPORT residents have taken the saying "Waste not, want not" to a new extreme.

Spent machine gun ammunition, wheelchairs and even a kitchen sink have been left out for the council's recycling scheme.

Other items found by bemused workers on the city's kerbsides include: sewing machines, paddling pools, traffic cones, ladders, guitars and a karaoke set.

Mike Croxford, general manager at Wastesavers recycling plant in Newport, said that enough is enough.

He said: "We want to take as much recycling as we can from the people of Newport - but only if it can actually be recycled.

"We don't want ammunition and old wheelchairs. It makes things very difficult for us.

"The recycling team have been astonished by some of the things they've found. Some of them were expensive things in good condition.

"Someone left a whole garden shed on the kerb. We couldn't fit it on the vehicle and had to call out the furniture wagon."

Workers did their best to recycle the strange items. The ammunition is not live and is believed to be from a Second World War machine gun. Waste-savers is looking into recycling the brass parts.

Metal parts from the kitchen sinks, wheelchair and sewing machine all went for recycling.

The guitars and paddling pools all went to the community furniture shop. New homes for the ladders, traffic cones and karaoke machine were found.

But Mr Croxford said: "We processed some of these things but it wasn't really worth it.

"All we want in the boxes are the listed items.Weird things come in every week but the strangest happened around six years ago, when an old lady tried to recycle her live parrot by giving it to the crew. One took it home as a pet."

The council recently announced a radical scheme to collect conventional rubbish once a fortnight at 10,000 Newport homes from October.

But it will double recycling collections in those areas. It wants to hit a recycling target of 40% by 2010.