KEEP your heads down. It starts today — Torbay's rubbish revolution.

Torbay Council has teamed up with private firm May Gurney to launch joint venture company Tor2 which is totally revamping and re-organising the resort's rubbish collection service.

For the majority of residents, out have gone the much-trusted and cherished green wheeled bins and in have come a selection of smaller black boxes.

It's all in the name of recycling. Tor2 reckon the new system will save the council — i.e. taxpayers — £14 million a year in landfill taxes and fines. Not to be sniffed at in the current economic climate and looming cuts in public expenditure.

The plan is to see at least 50 per cent of all the Bay's household waste recycled by 2012.

Kerbside recycling rates should also increase ten per cent in the first year of the new rubbish rounds.

More than 60,000 households in the three towns should have by now received leaflets detailing how it will work and a new fleet of 20 Tor2 lorries with special compartments are ready to rumble.

The transformation so far hasn't been exactly smooth.

Tor2 had to set up a special call centre to deal with inquiries and complaints from confused and angry members of the public. At the last check it was still dealing with 1,000 calls a day.

The Herald Express has been inundated with calls, letters and e-mails about the switch-over — with the majority of readers against the plans and some calling for the wheeled bins to stay.

Dustcart men have felt the wrath of some out on the streets, with some residents refusing to accept their new boxes. Just a plea on behalf of the workers today. Whether you are for or against the new bins, it's not their fault, they are just doing their job.

The merits of the new recycling venture cannot be questioned and, no doubt, in months to come we will all look back and wonder what all the fuss was about — hopefully. But today could still be a testing time. Let's hope the actual delivery of the service will be less trouble-free than the build up to it.