THURROCK Council is set to crack down on the blight of 400 shopping trolleys abandoned each month across the borough.

Council officers have recommended introducing a scheme to charge retailers the cost of retrieving and returning trolleys which are routinely discarded.

A report to councillors on the cleaner, greener, safer overview and scrutiny committee, which will meet next week, says: "Abandoned shopping trolleys blight the local environment and can lead to further littering and fly-tipping.

"There are approximately 20 shopping trolleys a day that have been abandoned on our streets and housing estates in Thurrock, equating to over 400 shopping trolleys per month.

"Abandoned trolleys not only look unsightly but can be left in roads creating traffic hazards. Abandoned trolleys on housing estates can attract antisocial behaviour including fly tipping and generally detract from the local environment. Shopping trolleys are often damaged beyond repair, full of rubbish or left abandoned in locations that make collection difficult. These factors can mean there is little benefit in owners recovering them."

The council can adopt statutory powers that would enable them to collect abandoned shopping trolleys and luggage trolleys from land open to the public, return them to the owner and "recover the council's reasonable costs of doing so".

If adopted, the council would be able to recover full costs for their collection, storage and disposal if they are not collected.

It is estimated that each return or disposal would incur a cost of between £120 and £230. The council would charge a collection fee of £70, an administration fee of £35 and £15 per week storage for a maximum of six weeks. There would also be a disposal fee £35. Where a retailer agrees a scheme with the council, a set fee of £85 is recommended to have the trolleys returned to store.

Currently, abandoned trolleys are collected and treated as waste and therefore incur a cost to the authority.

The council said it also relies on the goodwill of local stores recovering their own trolleys, in many cases they have a contract with Trollywise to collect and return their trolleys and put measures in place to prevent them from being taken out of the environs of the store in the first place.