Although the Newtown-based local authority is currently recycling around 40 per cent of all the municipal (trade and domestic) refuse it collects, that is well short of the 70 per cent target which the SNP administration in Holyrood wants to achieve across Scotland by 2025.

The figure was confirmed last month by Roseanna Cunningham MSP, minister for the environment, during a debate on her government’s national waste management plan which will go out to public consultation later this month.

The plan, which is due to be finalised in February next year, allows for just 25 per cent of total municipal waste to be treated and separated, with the balance of just five per cent going to landfill.

But it is the sanctions which may be used to secure this so-called “zero waste strategy” that are causing much nervousness at SBC which is currently testing the market for private-sector treatment operators.

On Thursday, Councillor Len Wyse, SBC’s executive member for environmental services, tabled a motion asking colleagues to condemn any proposal to introduce a 25 per cent “cap” on the processing of mixed municipal waste, which includes food waste and plastics.

Mr Wyse said such a measure was “unworkable” and would mean the council would not meet its targets to divert waste away from landfill, leaving it liable to fines of £150 per excess tonne. “Even without the fines, initial indications are that the cost of waste disposal will substantially increase by over 50 per cent, equating to over £35million over 15 years,” claimed Mr Wyse.

“The additional fines would mean costs of around £30million being added to that £35million and this could ruin the council.”

He urged the Scottish Government to consider the implications for public services of the demands it imposes on local government and to “reconsider this irresponsible and unworkable proposal”.

The motion was, not surprisingly, opposed by the opposition SNP group, with Councillor John Mitchell believing such a response was premature.