East Cambridgeshire: Wheelie Bins

22 November 2012, 12:02 | Updated: 22 November 2012, 12:25

East Cambridgeshire District Council has been awarded £5 million government funding to spend on wheelie bins, to improve recycling rates.

The district has the lowest recycling rates in Cambridgeshire, with only around 37% of rubbish being recycled.

That compares to around 58% in Huntingdonshire, 56% in South Cambridgeshire, 52% in Fenland, 45% in Peterborough and 44% in Cambridge.

It is also currently the only area in Cambridgeshire without wheelie bins.

Because of this, the District Council bid for £5 million pounds of government cash to fund a new recycling service.

Today (Thursday) it's been announced this bid has been successful.

The Council has therefore announced a new recycling system will be bought in, either in late 2013 or early 2014.

The district's current black box and brown sack recycling system will be replaced with:

  • A new wheeled bin recycling collection, including paper, glass, metal cans, plastics, cartons and cardboard. This will be collected fortnightly.
  • A new wheeled bin collection for organics to include food and garden waste. This will also be collected fortnightly.
  • A fleet of new vehicles for the new services as well as a rescheduling of rounds to reduce carbon emissions.

Waste that cannot be recycled will continue to be collected in black bin bags every week.

Councillor Richard Hobbs, Chairman of the Community and Environment Committee at East Cambridgeshire District Council, said: "Winning the funding to improve our recycling service is fantastic news.

In a recent public consultation we had overwhelming support for our plans so it is great to know we can now deliver a recycling service which people want.

The task ahead of us now is to bring the service in as soon as we can. 

This will mean a lot of hard work from buying the vehicles and wheeled bins to deliver the service to identifying the homes which will not be suitable for the service. 

We hope to complete this by next summer and have the service up and running from late 2013 or early 2014. 

During this process we will ensure residents are kept fully up to date with the progress of our work. 

Finally I would like to thank the Environmental Team at the District Council who has made our bid successful. 

It is very exciting to know our recycling rates are set to rise and we can continue to collect black bag rubbish every week in the years to come."