A £600,000 scheme to collect garden waste from over 12,000 households in Ribble Valley began this week.

Ribble Valley Council has bought four tailor-made vehicles with Government cash to collect the green waste from gardened properties.

The split-bodied vehicles will travel the rural borough collecting garden clippings and waste to be turned into compost.

Householders have been given rolls of green sacks to fill with the waste and leave out with their normal rubbish.

The council hopes the scheme will boost its recycling rate from nearly 16 per cent to over 40.

Peter McGeorge, the waste management officer for the council, said "We will collect the waste on a weekly basis using a fleet of specially-commissioned wagons able to provide an integrated waste management service.

"The Government has set local authorities challenging targets to recycle and compost household waste and, if we don't take positive steps to achieve them, action will be taken against us.

"The split-bodied collection vehicles will allow us to provide an integrated service, meaning costs will be kept to a minimum."

Over £2 million Government cash is being ploughed into schemes that will bring green waste collections to more than 100,000 households across Lancashire this year.

The cash is being doled out by the Lancashire Waste Partnership, which wants to see 40 per cent of the county's rubbish recycled by 2005 and 56 per cent by 2015.

From 2005, the Government aims to impose extra taxes on councils dumping recyclable waste in landfill.