Denbighshire County Council will fit microchips to its food waste caddies in a bid to increase the amount of food recycled.
Residents whose data shows they are using their bins less frequently, or incorrectly, will be visited by Denbighshire County Council officials.
The trial, a first of its kind in the UK, is set to be launched on November 11 and will involve four areas in parts of Corwen, Ruthin, Rhyl and Prestatyn – each with up to 200 households.
The aim is to increase the amount of food waste being recycled to enable the Welsh council to meet its statutory target of 64% this year.
If the caddy is contaminated we can record this and send information to the household to reinforce what we can and cannot accept
“The areas have been identified by our waste collection teams because fewer houses there are recycling food than in the surrounding areas,” said Tara Dumas, the authority’s waste and recycling manager.
“The microchips will automatically provide us with data telling us who is regularly recycling.
“If the caddy is contaminated we can record this and send information to the household to reinforce what we can and cannot accept.”
Collection crews will wear chip readers able to report information about individual caddies and automatically order new ones to replace any that are broken.
The authority is carrying out manual data collection in other areas and comparisons will then be made to determine whether the microchip method is more efficient.
Following a successful trial, microchips could be rolled out to 4,000 properties in 2020.
