Bins' sticker seal will enforce waste message

Wheelie bins will be sealed with stickers to stop families in Wolverhampton putting rubbish in them when new smaller ones are delivered to homes across the city next year, it emerged today.

Council bosses are bringing in wheelie bins that are almost half the size of the existing ones for non-recyclable rubbish while the old, larger ones, will be used for recycling paper, glass, cans, plastic and cardboard.

The £1.7 million scheme is intended to do away with unpopular white bags and green boxes which force people to separate their recycling.

But in order to get the message across binmen will be asked to put a sticker on the old bins the last time they are emptied to seal down the lids so residents don't lapse into old habits when they put out their rubbish.

It is hoped that by forcing people to remove a sticker they get the message that their old wheelie bin is not to be used for normal rubbish.

Wolverhampton City Council will also go out on at least 15 roadshows around community centres and libraries, and print almost 200,000 leaflets to get the message across.

The service is expected to come into effect from next March and that is when stickers will be used to seal bins.

Councillor Bob Jones, who is in charge of bin collections, said: "We have seen that this has worked well in places like Walsall where there has been a change of bin.

"If someone has to remove a sticker in order to open the bin then it is impossible to miss, whereas there is no guarantee that a leaflet will be read.

"We think this is an improvement on the existing service because all of the recycling apart from food can go into one bin."

The smaller bin is 140 litres whereas the current ones are 240 litres.

Normal waste and food waste will still be collected every week and recycling and garden waste every fortnight when the new bins are introduced. It is the third change to recycling in Wolverhampton since 2008.