More than 140,000 homes across Edinburgh will be receiving new grey bins with a lower capacity of 140 litres. These new bins will replace the current 240 litre green bins, the whole change over will cost around £3 million.
What’s new?
The new slimmer bins are designed to hold five bags of rubbish from a 30 litre kitchen bin compared to the current 240 litre wheelie bins which hold around 8 bags of rubbish. Green bins will now be used for recycling (with the exception of glass) meaning residents have larger recycling bins than general waste bins.
The new plan will be introduced in stages starting in August and will follow the much talked about switch from weekly to fortnightly collections in 2012. Both of these changes will mean that households will only be able to put out only a quarter of the general waste they could two years ago.
Why change?
The Evening News revealed that due to Edinburgh’s failure to meet Scottish Government Recycling targets is costing the city council almost £1 million on just landfill tax fines. The capital has missed the targets for six years in a row despite attempts to reduce costs.
The new schedule will be:
• General waste – 140 litre grey wheelie bin, collected fortnightly.
• Mixed recycling – existing 240 litre green wheelie bin, collected fortnightly.
• Glass recycling – existing blue box, collected fortnightly. This will also take small electrical items.
• Garden waste – existing 240 litre brown bin, collected fortnightly (monthly in winter).
• Food waste – existing small grey bins, collected weekly.
The current red box will no longer be used and will be collected from residents who don’t want to keep it. Up until now, people have been asked to put bottles and cans in a blue box, cardboard and plastic bottles in a red box, newspapers in a blue bag, batteries and textiles in another bag and food, garden waste and other materials in their own bins.
If you’re looking for a new wheelie bin visit us at wheelie-bins-direct2u.co.uk