Cheshire East Council will not be introducing weekly food waste collections until the autumn, writes Belinda Ryan.
This also means the council’s plans to change black bin collections from fortnightly to three-weekly will be delayed until the same time.
New legislation means every household in England ought to be getting weekly food waste collections from the end of this month.
But Cheshire East is one of many councils across the country which will miss the deadline.
Cllr David Jefferay (Ind), chair of the environment and communities committee, said: “As the third‑largest unitary authority in the North West, the scale of change required for Cheshire East to introduce weekly food waste collections is on a completely different level to that faced by many other councils.
“Delivering this service for around 190,000 households is a major operational project.
“Before we can launch, we must expand our depot facilities, install new infrastructure, purchase a large fleet of additional food waste collection vehicles and tens of thousands of kerbside caddies – which have long lead‑in times due to nationwide supply chain pressures – and recruit and train extra crews.”
He said some councils were not rolling out the weekly collections until next year.
“Despite the size and complexity of the programme for Cheshire East, we have made strong progress and remain on track to launch weekly food waste collections in the autumn,” said Cllr Jefferay.
He added: “This week, the council has also launched a communications and engagement campaign to encourage residents to recycle more and reduce waste.
“This will also help households get ready for the introduction of weekly food waste collections and the move to three‑weekly black bin collections.”
Think more consideration should be given to this new bin collection and how it is administered across CEC, as it is a fine balance between using this new bin and using the green bin, where you can currently put any food wastage as it goes to compost. So, I concur with Bill on food waste should continue to go into the green waste bin, as it is compost. Having another small bin to fill and collected each week, just doesn’t make sense for those homes who have green collections.
For those homes who don’t use green waste bin, then makes sense to have a food waste bin.
Again, fine balance on whether black bins should be collected every 3 weeks, as some homes have more wastage than others.
What a joke can’t even empty bins now on there collection days we need to stop paying on our council tax for bin collection I’m still waiting for my grey bin to be emptied as it was not done last Monday 2nd March
Every 2 weeks our green waste gets collected, along with everyone else on my street we pay for it.. The food waste goes into here and can happily sit for worst case 2 weeks.
I totally get folk without green waste in Cheshire East but I suspect outside of the core centre of Nantwich most probably pay for Green collection and have no need for an additional caddy collection each week.
More than happy black bin moves to 3 weeks, ours is rarely more than 1/3 full.