Now EVERY weekly bin collection is to be axed and families made to separate rubbish into five containers More than 100 areas which still have weekly bin rounds will lose them Traditional weekly rubbish collections must be scrapped to meet European recycling regulations, ministers have told councils. Every home must be made to separate its rubbish into at least five bins, the Government says. Under the new rules, more than 100 areas which still have traditional weekly bin rounds will lose them, to be replaced by fortnightly collections or similarly complicated rationing and recycling methods. Recycling rules: More than 100 areas which still have weekly bin rounds will lose them as residents are forced to separate their waste into five different containers The enforcement of waste collection systems using several separate recycling bins will mean an end to the weekly general rubbish collections operated since Victorian times, in which families were not required to painstakingly separate their rubbish into different containers. The separate recycling bins will no longer all be collected once a week, because councils find it cheaper and more efficient to collect some bins in one week and the others the next. The decision was announced by Environment Department minister Lord de Mauley, who said that under Brussels directives, compulsory recycling systems were obligatory. He said that by 2015, rubbish collections for every home must comply with the European Waste Framework Directive. This demands that families sort metal, paper, plastic and glass into separate waste bins. Unsorted general rubbish goes into a fifth bin. Lord de Mauley said there was an "obligation on local authorities separately to collect the four dry recyclate materials where this is necessary to facilitate recycling and recovery and where this is practicable." Going round and round: The new containers will not all be collected once a week, as it is deemed more efficient to collect some bins in one week and the others the next He added: "Each local authority will need to consider what this means for them." The death sentence for general weekly rubbish collections - first introduced by law in 1875 - follows almost a decade of controversy and political wrangling over Whitehall's drive for compulsory recycling. From 2006, councils were pushed to scrap the old-fashioned bin rounds and replace them with schemes in which general rubbish was collected only once a fortnight, and families and householders had to sort their refuse into recycling bins that were collected separately. People who over-filled their wheelie bins or put out sacks of "side waste" were hit with £100 fines. Families are producing less rubbish because they can't afford as much food, according to a new report. Domestic refuse has shrunk by 14 per cent since 2008 because household budgets have been squeezed in the financial crisis. The average household produced 1.53 tons of refuse in 2011/12 compared with 1.78 tons in 2007/08. The fall in rubbish left for binmen comes at a time when councils have introduced restrictions and limits on what and how much families can throw out. A report by the Association for Public Service Excellence said: "Although there are a number of other factors that are contributing to overall household waste reductions, it is safe to say that the economic downturn has been the major reason. Since 2007/08 we have seen a fall in real incomes and consumer spending. This will reduce the volume of goods being replaced and disposed of. The association, a local government-funded group, told council chiefs they must "demonstrate value for money" in their rubbish collections. The new systems were so unpopular that councillors who brought them in faced a major backlash at the polls. The last Labour government tried to sweeten compulsory recycling with new schemes such as kitchen slop-buckets, with limited success. David Cameron's Coalition abandoned the idea of bringing back weekly collections two years ago, despite the efforts of Communities Secretary Eric Pickles to urge councils to restore them. Doretta Cocks, of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collections, said: "This is very disappointing. The Tories made promises about weekly collections in opposition, and those promises have not been kept. They have let us down very badly. The move towards universal compulsory recycling comes at a time when the effectiveness of domestic waste recycling is in question. Recycling levels - measured by the amount each individual recycles - dropped in England last year for the first time in three decades. Earlier this year the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs acknowledged that claims for the amount of household waste that is really recycled - officially 43 per cent - are exaggerated, because a high proportion of domestic recycling is rejected by recycling plants as poor quality. It then goes to landfill or is shipped abroad. Only about 100 councils in England and Wales persist with the traditional bin round, in which a family's rubbish is taken away each week without question. About 180 councils have adopted the controversial fortnightly collection system, where binmen collect strictly limited amounts of general rubbish, usually from wheelie bins issued to households, on alternative weeks.