RESIDENTS in Oxford will not be charged to throw away their rubbish, the city council has pledged.

John Tanner, executive member for a cleaner, greener city, made the pledge after human rights group Big Brother Watch produced a survey revealing 68 local authorities had installed microchips in the rubbish bins of 2.6 million homes.

This was a 62 per cent rise on the previous year, when only 42 local authorities had bins with microchips fitted.

The city council bought 70,000 wheelie bins fitted with the microchips when it switched to a new waste collection system in 2006. But to date, the chips have only been used to trace missing bins.

Mr Tanner vowed the technology would never be used to collect information which could then be used to weigh waste and charge residents for throwing away too much.

He told the Oxford Mail: “We have no intention of activating the chips with a view to running pay-as-you-throw schemes.

“We think people pay enough in their council tax to have their rubbish collected, without having to face an extra charge.

“There never will be any plans to introduce a pay-as-you-throw scheme while the Labour group is in charge.

“Our recycling rate is about 36 per cent, which means we are recycling a third of what residents throw away, and that level should increase as food waste collections are rolled out across the city.”

Mr Tanner added it would have cost the council more money to request bins without chips when the wheelie bins were introduced.

Dylan Sharpe, a spokesman for Big Brother Watch, said a growing number of councils were installing the microchip technology, to prepare for a “political climate more amenable to bin microchips”.

Wheelie bins provided by South Oxfordshire District Council have microchips fitted and Vale of White Horse District Council is planning a new waste system involving wheelie bins from October.

Gavin Walton, a spokesman for the Vale, said neither local authority planned to run pay-as-you-throw schemes.

Strategic director Steve Bishop said on behalf of both councils: “We have around 100,000 bins in South Oxfordshire and will be delivering 95,000 in the Vale during the summer. We have chips in the recycling, refuse and garden waste bins.

“This is so we can accurately weigh the waste and so we can be sure every bin on a round is collected, which helps us with customer queries.

“These bins are expected to last up to 25 years.”

Neither West Oxfordshire or Cherwell councils have bins with chips and no plans to introduce them, they said.

Bristol City Council wants to weigh rubbish and then pay residents who throw away the least amount.