A research team appointed by Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) is checking through a random selection of black bag waste destined for landfill to see how much of it could be recycled.

The study of a random selection of waste produced by 200 households has been undertaken with the householders' permission and will provide baseline data to check the effectiveness of new waste collection arrangements, which are being introduced in July.

Cllr Bryan Jones, MCC's cabinet member for county operations, said: "At the moment, we're spending around £3 million on landfill.

"But we know that up to 70 per cent of the waste that we send for landfill could be recycled.

"This is bad for the environment and bad financially, as we need to find £14 million of savings in the next three years.

"So a cut of only a third in the amount of waste we send for landfill could save over £1 million to protect front line services."

The £60,000 study is being entirely funded by the Welsh Government in recognition of MCC's drive to cut household rubbish and increase recycling.

As well as providing evidence to assess the effectiveness of the changes to our waste services, the study will help us with planning for the future.

• The council has announced that nappies it collects separately from more than 1,000 households will now not be sent for recycling.

Knowaste, the provider of an innovative technology in Birmingham which turned nappies back into plastic pellets and cardboard fibre, has closed its recycling centre to pursue the building of a bigger facility within the region.

Councils were informed on 21st May that the plant was being shut with immediate effect.

For a short period the material will be sent to landfill, but MCC is looking at whether environmentally and financially it would be more beneficial to send this waste for energy recovery.

Cllr Jones added: "We are very disappointed that this has happened so suddenly.

"We have had no warning from the company that this was a possibility. Monmouthshire, with Cardiff, was the first council in the UK to support this technology because it was innovative and far better than landfill.

"We have to explore these innovative technologies otherwise progress would never be made. This time unfortunately the initiative has not worked.

"But we will learn lessons and for our residents I can say with confidence that there will be no change to the service we are providing.

"We are continuing to provide a separate collection of nappy waste while we review what options are available to us for the future.

"Any changes to the service will be advised to users well in advance."