A plan to collect black bins just once every four weeks was dropped after push back from members of the public. From 2026 black bins in South Gloucestershire will only be collected every three weeks in a drive to save just over £1 million a year and increase recycling rates.
The changes come as South Gloucestershire Council is set to ratify a new contract with Suez, a bin collection company. But council bosses now say they had initially explored moving to a four-weekly collection, which would have saved even more money but could be too unpopular.
An update on the bin changes was given to councillors on the scrutiny commission on Wednesday, November 6. The cabinet will sign off the new contract on Monday, November 11, and councillors were given a chance to ask questions ahead of that major decision.
Keirsten Wilson, a council project manager, said: “We’re looking to move to three-weekly black bin collections, which will help with our recycling rates. We’re also looking to bring in flexible plastic recycling across all households, and that will make a difference.
“There are already government targets to reduce residual waste to 50 per cent of 2019 levels by 2042. That’s another really strong reason why we want to move to three-weekly black bin collections, in order to help us meet that.”
Residents across the district have been consulted about the planned changes, and more work will be done to inform people about the three-weekly collection. Results of public consultations “helps inform” what decisions the council ultimately makes about major changes to services.
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Ms Wilson added: “We have a waste minimisation team who try to work with residents on an individual basis and through our communication channels on a wider basis. We do engage with residents when it’s a larger service change, and that helps us inform our decision-making, hence why we dropped the idea of four-weekly.”
Residents will soon be able to recycle soft plastic at the kerbside, and the household waste recycling centres, known as Sort It centres, will be brought in-house and managed by the council. However, council bosses are expecting disruption when the three-weekly collections are rolled out, and hinted at further major changes down the line, too.
Labour Councillor Sean Rhodes, cabinet member for communities, said: “There are potentially many changes that we’re looking at with this plan. Absolutely, the need to communicate with residents is going to have to be an important cornerstone of that. We all understand the difficulties with our waste collection processes, when there are changes to dates even.
“Christmas is coming, we all know how we struggle with changes to dates of waste collections around Christmas. There are some other discussions that we’ve having around certain potential innovations that we might be bringing in that will go further towards helping that. I won’t go too deeply into it right now because they’re just in the discussion phase.”
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