Why is Basingstoke and Deane District Council introducing fortnightly waste collections?
Fortnightly bin collections will be introduced in Basingstoke and Deane, in one of the biggest shake-ups of waste collection service for years.
At a meeting late last month, the council’s ruling cabinet approved a package of measures aimed at bringing it in line with the 2021 Environment Act.
Under this, councils must introduce weekly food waste collections by the end of the 2025-26 financial year if no service currently exists, or by 2030 at the latest if part of a current contract.
The plan will see food waste collected weekly, but alternate week collections for general waste and recycling, and will start in September 2026 – two years away.
It also approved plans to extend Serco’s contract to collect waste for an additional eight years, starting from October next year.
Ahead of the meeting, Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s cabinet member for residents’ services and housing, Laura James (The Independent Forum, Norden Basingstoke and Deane), said they were responding to demands from residents.
“We have listened and this decision will see the introduction of a new weekly food waste collection from October next year,” she said.
“Our new weekly food waste service will take over a third of waste from residents’ grey bins and use it to generate greener energy.
“At the moment Basingstoke is at the bottom of the recycling tables.
“We want to see our recycling rates go up and the only way to do this is to help residents to recycle more and put less into their grey bins.”
What is the Government aiming for?
In May, the then recycling minister, Conservative Robbie Moore, announced plans to unify what is collected across England ending what he said is a “confusing patchwork of different approaches”.
Councils will be allowed to collect plastic, metal, glass, paper and card in one bin in all circumstances.
Similarly, food and garden waste will also be allowed to be co-collected.
This approach, it argued, would reduce confusion over what items can be recycled, as people will no longer have to check what their specific council will accept for recycling.
It will also reduce complexity for councils and other waste collectors, ensuring they retain the flexibility to collect recyclable waste in the most appropriate way for their local areas.
Councils would have a minimum collection standard of weekly food waste collections, fortnightly black bin collections – some councils, such as Bracknell Forest, collect this on a three-weekly cycle.
Mr Moore said: “Our plans for Simpler Recycling will end that confusion; ensuring that the same set of materials will be collected regardless of where you live.”
Labour has not yet said if it will adapt or change these plans.
What is Basingstoke and Deane’s current recycling rate?
The council currently recycles around 29 per cent of residents’ waste, placing it 269th out of 317 local authorities in England.
Nearby South Oxfordshire District Council is top with a recycling rate of 62 per cent, while Tower Hamlets in London is bottom, with just 18 per cent of waste recycled.
All councils are tasked with reaching a 65 per cent recycling rate by 2035, and reducing the amount of waste per household to 272kg per year by 2042.
It is currently 567kg per household in Basingstoke and Deane.
The council estimates that around a third of waste in the current grey bins is food that could be recycled, while other waste can be recycled at home or at supermarkets.
Ms James said: “We will have to recycle more than twice the amount we do now within 10 years under national targets, as well as more than halving the tonnage of waste we collect.
“There is a huge shift change we all need to make to meet the government’s targets.”
Other changes planned nationally include a deposit scheme for single-use drinks bottles.
Customers will return them to supermarkets and receive a credit for them.
This system is widely used in Europe, with deposits generally around 25c (22p).
What about homes that can’t have wheelie bins?
The council is working on mapping the 842 bin stores serving an estimated 11,000 flats across the district.
This will then be compiled into a collection model that will work for these homes.
What will the costs be?
The council was asked to approve increases to the budgets to allow for the costs involved.
They include, in the 2025/26 financial year, an additional £1.76m to fund upgrades to its bin lorries.
For the first three financial years, it is anticipated there will be an increase in costs for the collection service: £850,000 in 2025/26, an additional £1.4m in 2026-27, and £480,000 the year after.
It is only from 2028 that the council expects to make a saving – of £150,000 – on the current budget of £5.97m.
Funding for new bins, of £1.4m, has come from the Government. They may make additional grants, but this will not be confirmed until the end of the year.
What do other councils do?
Reading Borough Council has been operating a fortnightly bin collection service for several years now.
It alternates between general waste and recycling, although it doesn’t collect glass from the doorsteps.
A food waste collection was launched in February 2021.
Wokingham Borough Council launches its fortnightly collections from today (Monday, August 12).
It says that 55 per cent of residents' waste is recycled in one form or another, and this could increase to 70 per cent if every resident recycled everything they could.
Bin sizes
Both Reading and Wokingham have issued most households with a 140 litre-sized wheelie bin in Reading and 180 litres in Wokingham for general waste. This is slimline.
The recycling bin is red and 240 litres in Reading, while Wokingham uses a sack system to collect residents’ recycling.
Households have been issued with two sacks each able to collect 60 litres of recycling.
It is expected that four of the bags will be enough for households on a fortnightly basis.
The smaller size for general waste, sometimes called residual waste, comes following research suggesting that this encourages greater levels of recycling.
Introducing the smaller bin in 2020, Reading Borough Council said: “It has been found that eight per cent of the contents of general waste bins is mixed recycling, such as cans, paper and plastic, which can be recycled through the council’s kerbside recycling collections.”
For households that have a genuine need for a larger bin, the councils do provide them.
What should be thrown out and what should be recycled?
The Government is working towards standardising waste collections across the country, but this is still some years away.
This means that Basingstoke and Deane’s doorstep glass collections are not replicated across Berkshire.
At the same time, Reading and Wokingham both collect more types of recycling.
The changes will hopefully mean more standardisation.
Waste bins should only contain bagged pet litter and animal waste, general dust and dirt, black plastic food container trays, polystyrene, disposable nappies and sanitary waste.
The recycling bins and bags in Reading and Wokingham can be filled with aerosols, cans, card and paper including empty pizza boxes, Tetrapak drinks cartons, foil, plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays.
There are exceptions, such as hard plastics, pill blisters, soap dispenser tops, toothpaste tubes, paper smaller than a Post-It note, and plastic film.
All recycling needs to be clean and dry to avoid contamination.
What about plastic bags and bubble wrap?
Most supermarkets are now collecting these so-called soft plastics, with recycling bins placed at the entrance or exits of the store.
Reading Borough Council launched a trial collection service in September last year and runs until March next year.
Sweet wrappers, crisp packets, fruit and vegetable net bags, meat wrappings and toilet roll packaging were all collected.
Residents were asked to ensure they were dry, clean and free of any food, and to place them into a special bag which is left on the recycling wheelie bin.
In July, the council announced it was expanding the scheme to cover 10,000 households, after the initial trial found that 13 tonnes had been collected – the same as 3,250 wheelie bins.
Karen Rowland, Reading Borough Council’s lead councillor for environmental services and community safety, said: “The kerbside collection of plastic bags and wrapping has a significant impact in a reduction of what’s left in residents’ grey waste bins, helping us recycle as much waste as possible.”
It hopes to roll out the changes to all homes in due course.
“This trial will help us assess the feasibility of a full roll out ahead of anticipated legislative changes to compulsory collection of plastic bags and wrapping, currently advised for spring 2027,” Ms Rowland added.
“Meanwhile it’s good to know that, for those eager to recycle more, most of the larger supermarkets will take soft film and plastic wrap for recycling.”
How will the bins be delivered?
If they are issued in the same way that Wokingham Borough Council sent them out, they will be delivered to a central depot in batches of 1,000.
These are loaded on to smaller trucks and dropped off in batches of around 15.
Contractors will unload them from the lorry and then attach the wheels before delivering them to each house.
Recycling food waste
Households are given two containers; a kitchen caddy which can take up to five litres of waste at a time, and a larger outdoor food waste bin.
The kitchen caddy is small enough to be stored on a worktop or next to a waste bin.
Some councils provide caddy liners, but others don’t due to the costs. Instead, residents can line the caddy with newspaper, or use plastic bags such as bread bags.
It is then a simple matter of lifting the full bag into the outdoor bin ahead of collection day.
What goes into a food waste bin?
Residents will be able to use their caddies to recycle everything food related from plate scrapings and bones to fruit and vegetable peelings, egg shells, tea bags, stale bread and used cooking oil presented in plastic bottles.
What can’t go on to a food waste bin?
Large bones, animal waste, compostable liners, plastic food packaging.
What about cooking oil?
To avoid creating ‘fatbergs’ in sewers, residents are advised to collect waste oil in a plastic bottle – 500ml drinks bottles are good for this.
The bottle should be sealed, with the lid screwed on, and left inside the food waste bin.
In May, Thames Water released details of a 6ft tall fatberg in East London, weighing the same as three double decker buses.
It took 20 people 11 days to clean-up the mess, which comprised cooking fat, wet wipes and sanitary items.
The water firm says these items are the prime cause of clogged sewers, and, if left untreated, they can lead to toilets backing up and overflowing or sewer collapses.
James O’Donoghue, pumping stations operations manager for Thames Water, said: “It was an incredible feat to clear the fatberg, and involved people from all across Thames Water to plan and then execute its removal.
“It was predominantly made up of silt and rag – unflushable items such as wet wipes, tampons and condoms – and shows the everyday challenges we face in keeping our sewers flowing.
Won’t the food waste bin be a nightmare to keep clean?
Kitchen caddies can be lined with plastic bags bought in any supermarket or ironmongery. But any type of bag can be used as long as it is not biodegradable; old bread bags, cereal packet liners etc.
It is also possible for the caddies to be lined with newspaper.
The small kitchen caddies can be easily rinsed in the sink, while the external bins can be washed with a hose.
If the lids are kept closed when not in use, it is unlikely that flies will be able to lay eggs which would then turn into maggots.
With a weekly collection cycle, most food waste will not have time to decompose enough to start to rot, which release gases that smell.
Where does the food waste go to?
In Wokingham, the food waste collected is sent to Oxfordshire, where an anaerobic digestion processing plant is used. It is one of around 700 sites across the country capable of handling our waste.
It converts organic materials into fuel that can be used to power vehicles, while methane gas is turned into energy, and the rest will be converted into fertiliser as bacteria breaks down the organic matter.
Why is it going to take two years to implement in Basingstoke and Deane?
Two years to introduce the new set-up might seem like a long time, but there are many steps needed behind the scenes to make everything run smoothly.
When Wokingham announced its decision to switch to fortnightly collections, it first held an eight-week consultation exercise which saw nearly 9,000 people respond.
It then had to go through various council meeting stages, and faced opposition from the Conservatives who campaigned against the proposals including a petition with 1,800 signatures which was presented and debated at a council meeting.
Councillor Norman Jorgensen (Conservative) was not convinced the plan would help the council’s financial picture.
“The forecast savings [of £1m a year] are not guaranteed to be achieved,” he said.
“Conservative councillors believe instead that savings can be achieved by making it easier to recycle by extending the range of materials that can be recycled and by encouraging residents to adopt recycling to a greater extent.
“A move to fortnightly collections would see a collection lorry turn up every week at residents’ homes, but it would take away less of people’s waste than previously.”
The council also had to procure enough bins for more than 60,000 households across the borough. This process started in June last year, and the first bins were delivered in May this year: an 11-month process.
The council will make its switch to fortnightly bin collections from today (Monday), almost two years since they started the process.
Basingstoke and Deane now needs to undergo a similar process.
Ms James said “The changes we agreed will mean Basingstoke and Deane can catch up with the vast majority of other councils, as well as meeting the legal deadlines, doing the right thing for the environment and providing value for money for residents.
“We take the climate emergency pledge, that all councillors agreed, very seriously.”
Visit www.basingstoke.gov.uk/bins for more details on the council’s current collection schemes.
