ONE in five binmen could lose their jobs if Bradford Council goes ahead with controversial plans to ditch weekly bin collections, unions have warned.

Cost-cutting plans plans put forward by the council's Labour administration would see general waste and recycling waste collected on alternate weeks across the district from 2017, saving £1 million a year.

But there is now growing anger about the proposals, with unions and the council's Conservative opposition both calling for a re-think.

According to unions, the district currently has 265 refuse collectors, the equivalent of 197 full-time roles.

Under the proposals, 40 full-time equivalent posts would be under threat - 20 per cent of the workforce.

Lynda Andrews, branch chairman of Unison, said the refuse teams were very upset at the threat to their jobs.

She said: "Morale is pretty low. Bear in mind these are low-paid workers in public services and all these cuts are hitting front-line services.

"We should be looking at stripping out tiers of management and not recruiting managers at high levels, right across the council."

Councillor Simon Cooke, leader of the Conservative group, said the proposed cut would hit everybody in the district.

He said: "We are not huge enthusiasts for the council reducing one of the services that everybody in the district receives.

"It is a 50 per cent cut in the service to everybody in Bradford, wrapped up in a load of nonsense around the environment."

Many councils across the UK switched to fortnightly bin collections years ago and some are now only picking up general waste every three weeks.

Bradford is now the only local authority in West Yorkshire with a weekly general waste collection.

The council took advantage of Government incentives available to authorities willing to keep up weekly rounds, but this runs out in 2017.

Councillor Imran Khan, portfolio holder for the environment, sport and sustainability at the Labour-led authority, said while this had prompted the proposed change, he also felt that encouraging people to recycle more and throw away less was the right thing to do.

He said: "Recycling is the way forward and anything we can do to encourage people or force them or coerce them in whatever way to recycle more can only be a good thing."

He said he did understand staff members' concerns, but Bradford Council worked to avoid compulsory redundancies wherever possible, preferring to use voluntary redundancy and natural wastage.

The council's Liberal Democrat and Green groups are both backing the proposed move to fortnightly green bin collections.

Councillor Jeanette Sunderland, leader of the Liberal Democrat group, said Bradford should have made the change years ago.

She said: "It is currently costing us millions of pounds to send materials to landfill that could be recycled.

"That is millions of pounds we would rather see spent solving the crisis in adult social care."

The plans, first unveiled back in September, form part of wider proposals to cut a further £53m from Council budgets in 2016-18.

A public consultation is under way and on Tuesday a council scrutiny committee will examine the plans in detail.

Councillor Martin Love, leader of the Green group and chairman of the environment and waste overview and scrutiny committee, said he was keen to find out whether the changes would be accompanied by a recycling education programme, to prevent rubbish from building up in the streets.

He said: "You can't just cut the collection. It has got to be backed up by educational work."

But he said the Green group was broadly in favour of the change, saying it could result in a "step change" for the district's recycling rates.

He said: "It makes environmental sense, it makes economic sense. It ticks both boxes."