New food bin rollout under way in Dudley amid private sector fears
Dudley residents are getting new bins as the council implements compulsory changes to how it collects domestic waste.
From April, local authorities will be obliged by law to collect food waste as well as other items to be recycled.
Dudley Council has been delivering 80,000 food waste caddies to households in the first phase of its rollout of the new collection arrangements.
Councillor Damian Corfield, Dudley Council cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “As a council we are fully committed to increasing the borough’s recycling rates and want to make things as simple as possible for our residents.”
By the end of March, every home will have been issued with containers for food waste and a blue wheelie bin for mixed recycling like cans, plastic, glass and cartons.
From the first week in April, there will be a fortnightly collection of the blue bin along with the existing blue bag for paper and card.
A black bin for general non-recyclable waste will be retained under the new system and collected fortnightly.
Residents will be issued with two food caddies, a small one with liners for use in the kitchen, which, when full, should be emptied into the larger caddy outside.
Larger caddies will be emptied weekly, and the waste will be taken to a recycling plant where it will be converted into fuel to generate renewable energy.
Residents who have communal waste and shared bins will not initially see any changes; the new service will be rolled out later for them.
Cash to implement the changes has been provided by central government amid concerns that the private sector wants to muscle in on waste collection services.
The Local Government Association (LGA), which represents councils in England and Wales, says the packaging industry is being forced to pay for the disposal of waste packaging and is lobbying to take control over doorstep waste collection to cut costs.
The LGA argues the private sector says it can bring ‘the culture of productivity and cost savings to waste services’, but councils warn this risks reducing services to a one-size-fits-all model, where decisions are driven by cost rather than community benefit.
Councillor Arooj Shah, environment spokesperson for the LGA said: “Decisions about collections and services must remain in the hands of communities, not handed over to producers whose priority will inevitably be profit.”
