The council spent more than £60,000 in a bid to ensure this year’s Christmas bin collection was less disruptive than last time.

Included in this bill is more than £26,000 for cards sent out to inform residents of their altered festive bin schedules.

Council waste staff don’t work Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day – creating a bin backlog for 33,000 households each day.

Following complaints about overflowing bins last year, waste officer Ray Skipp and his team decided to send cards to the 67,688 households affected by the bank holidays – more than 44 per cent of the borough – detailing their collection schedules.

In July, a scrutiny  meeting at which the plan was approved by councillors heard these cards would cost £20,000 – but the bill has since gone up to £26,922.

At the time, Mr Skipp said the costs were worthwhile.

He said: “It is a lot of money but we feel direct mail is the best way to get the message across.” Sue Mason, of Chester Road, Macclesfield, disagreed.

She said: “The glossy designer card delivered to my home informed me of a change in one day of my recycling schedule over Christmas.

“In these times of austerity, I suggest this information could have been promulgated more cheaply, if not by print and social media then maybe a note slapped on the bin during collection. The collectors could be given a Christmas bonus by the council for this additional task to their day.”

The council has also stickered all garden waste bins with a notice indicating they won’t be collected for six weeks from December 14-January 25.

Other planned costs include  £10,500 on extra vehicle hire and fuel and £8,000 on agency staff to cover the bank holidays – Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day.

A further £3,955 has been spent on stickers and £11,840 on agency staff to put them on.

Call centre information and the CEC website pages have been updated and information sent out on Twitter.

If the new plan is successful, the cost will be included in the next budget.

Bin collections cost £7.5m a year, down from £9m two years ago and more than 1,700 households now have more than one silver bin for recycling.

A council spokesman said: “This year we have decided to directly notify each household affected by changes to waste collections over the festive period. It was felt that this would be the best to communicate with residents and eliminate any confusion or upset.

“Last year our methods were rightly criticised as being unclear, leaving people not knowing when to put their bins out.

“This year we have responded to that criticism and decided to invest in better information to make things clearer for our residents.”