Confusing plans for food waste collections

Black refuse bins will only be collected every three weeks under new Cheshire East Council plans.

Under the last government’s “Simpler Recycling Scheme”, local councils must collect food waste each week from 1 April 2026.

So Cheshire East is planning to cut back on black bin collections – to balance out the costs of the extra food waste collections.

Next week, the council’s Environment and Communities Committee will consider a report seeking approval for rolling out the changes in Cheshire East.

The plan is to:
– collect food waste alongside the fortnightly garden bin rounds
– a separate food collection round in the alternate weeks
– collect black bins every three weeks, instead of every fortnight

Council chiefs say the plans would increase recycling rates by almost 5% and reduce the financial burden of introducing weekly food waste collections by more than £1 million each year.

Cllr Mick Warren, chair of Cheshire East Council’s environment and communities committee, said: “Introducing weekly food waste collections is a significant operational change affecting almost all our residents, and the financial impacts will also be significant.

“At the moment, we don’t know how much funding we will receive from Government to compensate the council for introducing these changes, and there’s a significant risk that the funding won’t cover the costs in full.

“Any shortfall will place an even bigger pressure on the council’s finances – we’re already forecasting a funding gap of £100m over the next four years.

“That’s why – along with wishing to encourage people to reduce, reuse and recycle more of their waste – at the same time as weekly food waste collections are introduced, we’re proposing to move to collecting black bins once every three weeks.

“It offers the best value for money and would reduce the demand on our existing fleet of bin wagons and staff and make a significant revenue saving in excess of £1m per year.”

In late 2023, a Government consultation was launched which included draft guidance requiring councils to collect residual (black bin) waste each fortnight as a minimum.

CEC replied saying it would have a detrimental impact on the ability of councils to increase recycling rates and to be able to join up large-scale operational changes because of weekly food waste collections.

Cllr Warren added: “We understand as a local authority, if the guidance is passed by Government through the Parliamentary process, we could not make these proposed changes to black bin collections.

“However, we are proposing to carry out this consultation now so we are in a position to move forward with what is the most cost effective and least risky solution for introducing weekly food waste collections, which can also meet the deadline previously set by the Government.”

Like most Cheshire East ‘plans’, surely this is flawed?

Garden waste bins are now only collected from residents subscribing to the council’s green waste collection scheme. And those residents put their food waste into their green bins.

Residents outside this scheme dispose of food waste in their black bins. So to conform with the legislation their black bins will have to continue to be collected weekly.

If additional collections are needed, surely non-green waste subscribers would need two more collections. Unless of course they’re suggesting that food waste on certain weeks will go in with the grey recycling bin – which would punch a huge hole in the council’s recycling targets?

Are they going to provide us with another coloured bin for food waste?

If another collection is introduced how can this ‘balance’ the collection costs?

It’s conceivably us at ilovemacc, but if we’re missing something please let us know.

The consultation on black bin collections is expected to launch in September.