DISPOSAL of old fridges is set to have chilling costs to the council taxpayers of Bolton because of a new European directive.

The new measures will drain £100,000 from an already pressured budget because they must have all CFCs removed before they can be properly disposed.

Estimated costs to the Waste Disposal Authority across Greater Manchester -- who put a levy on council tax -- is £900,000. It used to cost 20p per fridge and this will rise massively to £40.

It is going to be at least a year before the first CFC plant is in place in Britain and Europe's two existing plants are over used.

"I am very annoyed about this," said Executive councillor and member of the Waste Disposal Authority Michael Kilcoyne.

"The Government only announced this in October and there is not enough time to plan for it properly. Really we are left high and dry.

"I support the idea, but my real concern is that this has been round for some time. We should have already built something in this country to deal with it. It's not environmentally friendly to ship the fridges to Europe, it is somewhat defeating the object and could have been planned better."

There now fears that the Council will have to start charging for fridge collection if the cost is not compensated in its budget allocation from the Government -- which is to be announced this week.

"This is considered every year and councillors have always gone against this because of the risk of items being dumped," added Councillor Kilcoyne.

Deputy Conservative leader John Walsh has accused the Government of not coming up with their promises to deal with the new directive.

"It is increased costs to people all because of am imposed European directive.

"If a charge is imposed people won't pay and this will lead to fly-tipping."

But the Keep Britain Tidy Group says that the Government's promises to address the issue means we should not end up with the the frightening prospects of fridge mountains.

Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority is now in the process of trying to negotiate a contract with a company to deal with the new form of fridge disposal.

The new law, which comes into effect on January, insists on the removal of all CFCs from the foam insulation because they are known the damage the ozone layer.