Microchips could be installed in every wheelie bin in Barnet, allowing the council to spy on the amount of rubbish each household throws away, it emerged this week.

On Monday night, councillor Matthew Offord, cabinet member for the environment, said that the scheme would be good for the local economy, for the council tax and for the environment, as Barnet Council's cabinet agreed to ask officers to find out how much it would cost taxpayers to set up the scheme.

The chips, combined with receptors on the refuse collection lorry, can record the weight of the rubbish and the time of collection. They would allow councils to identify which households are throwing the most rubbish away and, by implication, which residents are not recycling sufficiently. The device also enables authorities to ensure that collections are happening on time.

In Croydon, 100,000 bins with chips have already been handed out, and the scheme is set to go live later this year. Officers in the south London borough will follow-up consistently heavy loads with advice to households on recycling, and the scheme is likely to follow a similar track in Barnet, if implemented.

Concerns about the chips, which cost £1.70 each, have been raised by Conservative London Assembly member Andrew Pelling, who branded the service a spy in your bin' last year, but the proposal has been backed by Mr Offord. "It is something we should consider and it would have an impact on the local economy, the council tax and the environment," said Offord. "It is an interesting concept and one that we should explore."

The cost to the taxpayer is likely to be more than £200,000, but Mr Offord believes that the scheme would help the council cut costs by improving levels of recycling in the borough.

Barnet's draft waste strategy for the next 15 years, which was approved on Monday, says the council will be tasked with looking specifically at the costs and benefits of investing in technology that will improve service monitoring and efficiency, such as GPS onboard vehicles and chips in bins that will provide data.