Leeds City Council clarifies position on bin collections as new brown bin food waste trial announced

Leeds City Council has today issued an update on bin collections in the city as well as announcing details of a new food waste collection trial starting shortly.

The council is aware of information circulating suggesting the introduction of a fourth bin for households as part of national simpler recycling changes. Leeds City Council can confirm this is not the case for Leeds, the council is committed to maintaining the current three-bin approach to keep waste disposal and recycling as simple to follow as possible and to minimise confusion for all residents.

With glass now being able to recycled via household green bins, Leeds is ahead of schedule in terms of meeting national requirements for glass, metals, paper, card and plastics to be recycled as part of kerbside bin collections. Leeds residents can already recycle plastic film, well ahead of the 2027 deadline around that material. There are therefore no plans to move away from this successful approach and Leeds will continue with the one green recycling bin.

As part of a government drive to keep food waste separate from the black general waste bin, funding has been received to allow Leeds to begin a trial of a new approach which would see food waste placed in the brown garden waste bin, with those brown bin collections becoming an all-year round service.

The trial in Leeds will be held around the Wetherby and Collingham area, as that is closest to the facility where the mixed food and garden waste will be processed. Households in the trial will be contacted shortly with more details as well as receiving a new kitchen food waste caddy to support the new fortnightly service, which is set to start by the end of February.

Should the trial prove successful, the council will then look to roll it out to all households in the city that have brown bins, including offering the service to more households. For the remaining households where a brown bin would be unsuitable, consideration is currently being given as to how a separate food waste collection service could be delivered.

Leeds operates the largest free garden waste collection service in the UK, annually collecting more than 31,000 tonnes of garden waste from 220,000 households across the city with the brown bin service currently pausing over the winter months.

Having this infrastructure already in place means the council has the flexibility to extend the service around brown bins, which would avoid the need to introduce an additional fourth bin.

The council remains fully committed to supporting and encouraging residents and businesses to recycle as much as possible. Improvements to waste management in recent years has seen the use of landfill reduced from 25 per cent to less than 0.2 per cent, with more items able to be recycled through the green bin.

As well as reaffirming there will be no change to the current black, green and brown bin policy for Leeds, the council can also confirm that any reports of new fines being introduced for materials being put in the wrong bin are not true.

The council’s waste services team continues to work to support residents to dispose of their waste effectively from home or at one of the eight household waste recycling centres across the city.

Guidance and information about the council’s waste services can be seen at https://www.leeds.gov.uk/bins-and-recycling while all collection dates can be seen by property at https://www.leeds.gov.uk/bins-and-recycling/check-your-bin-day and reminders can also be sent directly to smartphones by downloading the popular Leeds Bins app.

Leeds City Council’s executive member for climate, energy, environment and green space, Councillor Mohammed Rafique said:

“We are aware of information and rumours circulating regarding an additional fourth bin and new fines possibly being introduced. We would like to stress neither of these elements are true for Leeds, we remain fully committed to keeping to the current three-bin approach to keep things as simple as possible for our residents while continuing to encourage recycling through green bins and the household waste recycling centres.

“Developing our existing brown bin service for food waste collections along with garden waste is an interesting and exciting development, so we look forward to the new trial service starting shortly to see how effective it is.”

ENDS

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Leeds City Council communications and marketing,

Email: communicationsteam@leeds.gov.uk

Tel: 0113 378 6007