Carmarthenshire County Council will be forced to pay huge financial penalties if it fails to hit Welsh Government recycling targets.

A report has gone before councillors to consider how the council can achieve the 70 per cent recycling target by 2024/25.

The Environmental and Public Protection Scrutiny Committee met on Monday, June 8, to discussed the future of the council’s waste service.

Carmarthenshire has come a long way since 2003 when just 9.4 per cent of our household rubbish was being recycled.

Now we are recycling more than 59 per cent of the 78,000 tonnes of waste collected every year from 87,000 households.

However, more needs to be done if the county is to achieve future, more challenging targets or risk huge financial penalties approximately £160,000 for every one per cent below the target.

Issues discussed by the committee included the procurement for the long-term treatment, recycling and disposal of the county’s waste and new refuse vehicles costing in the region of £4-£4.5million.

Scrutiny Chair Councillor Peter Cooper said: “The waste agenda is very important, from both an environmental point of view as well as financially.

“To date, Carmarthenshire has performed extremely well, however, we must look at how we continue to deliver the service in order to achieve future recycling targets.

“The committee had a lively debate on the issues involved to help decide the best way forward for the county.”

The report will now go before the Executive Board for a final decision.