Eileen Leng, a 91-year-old widow, who survives on a state pension has been told she has to pay £30 a year for the fortnightly emptying of her brown wheelie bin, which contains garden waste, even though she pays £1,400 a year in Council Tax.

Mrs Leng receives help to put rubbish in her bins, as she is unable to do so unaided.

She says she has no option other than to pay the £30 fee, because she is no longer able to dispose of garden refuse herself and the council will not allow her to put garden waste in any of her other wheelie bins.

She feels that although the brown wheelie bin scheme, aimed at reducing the amount of garden waste going to landfill, is an optional scheme, people in her situation who cannot get to waste recycling centres, have no choice but to pay the £30 and have their waste collected.

If Mrs Leng chooses not to pay the £30 bill for the year's waste removal, the bin will be taken away from her and she will have to pay another £30 to get the bin back.

Mrs Leng's daughter, Victoria, said: "My mother has been a Thame resident for 15 years. Since my father died a year ago, I have managed her affairs. I was outraged when she received a bill from the District Council to have her wheelie bin emptied.

"Why when people pay their Council Tax should they have to pay to have their green waste collected - I thought the idea was to encourage recycling, not discourage it.

"I know residents are given the option of not having a wheelie bin but what do the council expect people - the elderly in particular - to do with their green waste when you're not supposed to put even a bunch of dead flowers in the ordinary rubbish?

"I think all refuse collections should be free to everyone but most certainly for pensioners of the over 80s group. This is nothing short of daylight robbery."

SODC say the brown wheelie bin scheme was introduced to help meet Government targets set to reduce the amount of compostable waste being sent to landfill sites.

A spokeswoman said: "It's a service that gets renewed every year, and not everybody wants to take part. (The scheme) is to encourage people to recycle.

"We are facing huge targets from Government in terms of the amount that we can send to land fill.

"If we don't meet Government targets, we get fined and we would have to raise Council Tax and if we don't run the scheme it potentially has a knock-on effect for Council Tax payers."