Need your wheelie bin replacing? That will be £30 please

If households have their black bins stolen or set alight, from November they will have to provide the council with a crime number to avoid being landed with a 22 charge for the new bin, plus an 8 delivery fee.

Equally, if their bin is damaged they will have to prove it was the fault of the refuse collectors to escape the bill.

While the council's leading Labour group says it can no longer afford to issue replacement bins free of charge – after replacing 25,000 last year at a cost of more than 200,000 – the scheme has been slammed by those across the political divide.

Coun John Gilding, leader of the Conservative group on Rotherham Council, said it was unfair to charge taxpayers for what should be a standard service.

"This is going to send the crime figures rocketing up if people start having to phone the police about wheelie bins. The police have got better things to do than go around looking for wheelie bin bandits.

"If the bins are damaged people are going to have to prove they were damaged by the council during collections. How can they do that?

"It's so petty. Once the council starts passing things like that they've gone one step too far."

Housing developers, meanwhile, will be charged 57 for each new property they build, in order to receive a black bin and bins for recycling.

Coun Gilding added: "If they're going to start charging developers for bins that charge will be passed on to the purchaser of that property, who will be charged for using a council service."

Coun Richard Russell, cabinet member responsible for waste, said: "It is regrettable that we are having to introduce the 22 replacement charge but if we want to continue with our collections and improve our recycling rate we will have to make this charge.

"We provided over 25,000 free replacement waste containers last year. This equates to one in eight households having a container replaced each year, which costs us a huge amount of money and it just cannot be sustained."

Fiona McEvoy, from the Taxpayers' Alliance, also criticised the scheme, saying: "For many residents, bin collections are one of the few services they actually use and value so it's ridiculous that they might be in the unfortunate position of having to pay again for their bins.

"Very few people are likely to destroy or lose their bins deliberately, and yet it looks as though they'll have to foot the bill.

"The police have better things to do, and busy families don't have the time to deal with reporting trivia like this, but ultimately both are going to suffer under these ridiculous new rules."

Other authorities already charging for replacement bins include councils in Bolton, Burnley, Cambridge, Harrogate, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Solihull and Woking.