EVERY household on Merseyside is set to see a major change to bin collections in less than two years. The government had said all councils across England must be recycling food waste by April 1 2026 after laws were passed to bring it in in 2021.
Wirral Council has been given £2.377m by the government to allow it to buy new bins and vehicles “to assist in the delivery of weekly food waste collections.” The change is being brought in across the country by 2026 unless the government changes its mind.
The changes will mean Wirral Council will have to enter talks with Biffa, its current contractor for waste collections, about food recycling going forward for the remainder of its current contract. This ends in August 2027.
Looking beyond 2027, the local authority is currently exploring three different options for future bin collections as it prepares to spend more than £300m over the next 15 years. Since 2006, services have been provided through Biffa for roughly 147,000 homes.
This contract currently covers all household waste and recycling collections, waste collection from council premises and schools, and street cleansing of adopted highways, pavements and alleyways. However, collection of litter and fly tipping on other council land, including parks, is not part of this contract.
At a meeting on July 15, councillors agreed to approve the development of a business case to either outsource all services, create a council run company to run all services, or bring street cleaning in house while waste collection is outsourced. Cllr Allan Brame, who criticised a “woeful record of recycling and Merseyside in general,” said it was “the most significant thing we are going to be embarking upon in this year” affecting everyone in the borough.
To set a level playing field going forward, council officers said they were already engaging with the private sector to address any concerns about the fairness of the process. It is also looking at alternative provision as the current Bromborough depot was not owned by the council.
Cllr Steve Foulkes called on all parties to work together to “make sure what we get is what people want and what people deserve.” He said previous plans for food recycling had been “killed” by “political scaremongering.”
He said: “This is one of the biggest decisions we will make. It’s something everyone relies on and it’s a measure of how good your council is really, whether you can collect the bins or not.
“It’s a pretty basic service people pay for and expect to be reliable, done in a correct manner, and hopefully with the addition of food recycling we begin to increase the recycling rate dramatically.”
Issues were raised about wages and pension contributions and how this could affect the affordability of any bids. Council officers said they were also looking at recycling things like batteries and vapes, introducing communal bins, as well as rolling out more solar powered bins after pilots in areas like West Kirby and New Brighton.
Officers said at least three bins had caught fire due to batteries while out on the road. Despite no vehicle damage, they said this showed a need to provide a way for people to dispose of them correctly.
There were also cross-party calls for more awareness to be raised about what can be recycled and what can’t, including letters sent to every household. Cllr Vida Wilson said: “It would be a good idea if something went out on the website now to sort of re-educate people prior to all these changes going on what they can actually at this time put in their recycling bin and what they can’t.”
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