South Leeds residents could face fortnightly collections of their bins – in a bid to encourage them to use their green bins more and cut costs.
Senior councillors on the executive board are likely to give the go-ahead to a pilot scheme – in an unnamed part of the city – for fortnightly rubbish and recycling collections to encourage people to put more in their green bins and less in the black ones. Should the pilot be a success, it is likely to be rolled out citywide.
A council press release says:
“With ambitious new targets to divert Leeds’ waste from landfill by vastly improving amounts recycled, a change in emphasis towards emptying green bins more often could be trialled in one part of the city.”
Councillor Mark Dobson, executive member for environmental services, said:
“There’s a real public will in Leeds to recycle more and waste less. I get asked a lot why we are spending money on weekly black bin collections instead of on more recycling collections when the city would also save cash on the massive taxes on sending rubbish that can’t be recycled to landfill.
“Currently our officers are examining a whole range of options, including piloting fortnightly bin collections, to see what might help us achieve this.
“Recycling is good for the city’s environment and its purse. By trialling this in one area we will be able to monitor in detail whether such a system would actually deliver significant recycling increases.”
Alongside the proposed pilot and commitment to increased recycling targets councillors will also be asked to approve an extension of the Rothwell food waste collection scheme for up to a further 6,000 homes, where kitchen waste is placed into handy caddies then decanted into an outside container for kerbside collection.
The full agenda and papers can be found here.
