More than 1,000 wheelie bins have been lost, stolen or damaged in Sandwell in the last two months, leaving the council with a £20,000 bill to replace them, it was revealed today.

The authority is being asked to replace around 500 of the recycling bins per calendar month at a cost of £20 a bin.

And the spate of thefts of the blue lid bins has raised fears that new household bins which started being rolled out to 112,000 homes in June will also be targeted.

Homes are being given  new bins for the first time in 20 years after Sandwell Council re-organised the service. Cabinet member for neighbourhood services Councillor

Derek Rowley today said there had always been thefts of the blue bins, but the rate for July and August was “ridiculously high”.

He said: “We don’t know where they all go. We can only go by replacement requests, and it costs about £20 to replace each one.

“Before that it was only garden waste containers and the replacement rate was low.” Mr Rowley said he believed many of the bins were being stolen.

He said: “There are those unscrupulous people who are taking them and throwing them in the canal or setting them alight.

“There are also those who are using them for purposes which they are not designed for, such as transporting scrap metal. But to be honest for a lot of them we just don’t know what is happening to them.” He added that the council will only replace a bin once without charge.