Kids are literally getting 'wasted' with Britain's daftest drug craze - sniffing fumes from burning wheelie bins, it has been claimed.

Youngsters are risking their lives by torching the plastic bins in a bid to get high on the fumes, a waste management company has warned.

Officials at the firm say they have had reports from around Britain of youths burning wheelie bins to sniff the smoke.

It is believed that certain dyes used in the manufacturing of the waste bins, depending on the colour of the plastic, can create fumes which users use to get high.

Anti-solvent abuse charities said inhaling the bin fumes could be more dangerous than sniffing glue or petrol.

Mark Hall, from waste firm BusinessWaste.co.uk, said: "We've seen reports from Wolverhampton, Hull, Glasgow and Swindon over recent weeks, and they're all the same.

"Idiots stealing wheeled bins from outside homes and businesses, taking them to waste ground or parks, and torching them for whatever kicks they can derive.

"While some of them could just be arson, others include quotes from police officers who acknowledge that they're doing it for weird drug-related kicks."

The company has received "hundreds" of reports from clients who discovered ruined bins.

He said "There was a craze about ten years ago and it died out.

"All of a sudden we are getting reports again. We have got a huge amount of them being burnt at the moment.

"It is growing - there is 100 per cent more than there was last month."

The trend surfaced a decade ago in South Yorkshire but appeared to have made a revival, he said.

In 2007 South Yorkshire Police issued a warning to leave bins alone after 40 bins went up in smoke in the space of four months.

The risk of aerosol cans being contained in the rubbish, which could explode if they came into contact with fire, is high, particularly on business premises.

Mr Hall said many people were not reporting the bin fires to police, making it hard to provide statistics on the crimes.

He said: "Just one aerosol might cause a potentially fatal explosion.

"And bins stolen from business premises could contain just about anything that can cause fatal injury to the unwary.

"Our people are sick of having to scrape melted plastic from pavements and parks, and our clients hate the inconvenience of having their bins stolen."

Stephen Ream, a spokesman for solvent abuse charity Re-Solv, said: "It would be very dangerous, it sounds like it would make you sick before you got high.

"The fumes it would give off would be toxic."

In 2007 there were reports in Scotland of people burning bus shelters to get the same effect.