ACCORDING to a non-red, top newspaper, the BBC's Real Story programme was supplied with a list of 30 town halls currently fitting microchips to wheelie bins following a series of reports from around the country that authorities have been quietly incorporating the chips into bins.

In Bournemouth 25,000 householders are thought to have removed the bugs from under the lids. It said the chips are used to identify bins and weigh rubbish to within 1lb.

Pay-as-you-throw laws will be drawn up within weeks to let every local authority give households a bill based on the volume of their garbage. Although schemes are to run nationwide, councils would not be obliged to join.

This may go some way to answer why Bury Council spent £49,000 without consultation. But this has not come about overnight. The report includes quotes from different people already involved and aware of the new scheme, including the Local Government Association.

Why waste £49,000, plus untold related costs on microchipping, if cleaner, greener Bury Council - already exceeding waste targets - "has no intention whatsoever of charging residents for waste or recycling colllections"?

The "scaremongering regarding a Big Brother' state where levies are imposed for the collection of recycled waste" (Bury Times, August 31) looks more like reality than rubbish.

There obviously seems more to microchipping than mentioned in statements from Bury Council's chief executive.

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