New bins will still be delivered to residents in Wolverhampton next year despite the “risk” of fines from Europe if people do not separate their glass from the rest of their recycling, it emerged today.

A European directive demands that from 2015, glass is collected separately from the rest of the recycling in order to avoid it becoming contaminated.

But Wolverhampton City Council is planning to issue every home in the city with a half-sized wheelie bin for ordinary rubbish and let people use the old full-sized bin to put recycling in, apart from garden waste and food slops.

If it goes ahead it will mean the end of the green box for paper, cans and glass and unpopular white bags for plastic and card.

Bosses said they had been unable to get clear advice from the Government on what to do and decided to “risk” going ahead.

Leader of the council Roger Lawrence said today: “There’s an EU directive that by 2015 we will have to separate glass at the source but the Government has not decided what to do.”

Councillor Bob Jones, who is in charge of city services, said: “The Government is taking the view that if it forms a clear policy on it, then it will not be able to pass the fines for breaching the directive on to local authorities.

Given the significant advantages of having fewer containers it is worth the risk.”

Currently Wolverhampton residents have six different bins from the council — a wheelie bin for normal rubbish and another for garden waste, a green box, a white bag and two bins for food waste — one for the kitchen and one to leave out for the binmen.