Bristol black bin collections could change to once a month under new plans

Black bin collections in Bristol could be reduced to once a month as the city council considers "draft options".

The plans include potentially reducing recycling days to “less frequently than weekly” if one wheelie bin for all reusable materials is introduced.

Another proposal includes one wheelie bin each for paper and card, plastic and cans, and glass, with each collected three-weekly on rotation per week.

Bristol City Council's plans were obtained via a leaked document seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

According to the papers, the local authority needs to make savings amid soaring costs and a huge budget blackhole, as well as targeting better recycling rates.

The council is launching a public consultation on 18 November, which has yet to be announced, which will ask what householders think about reducing black bin days from fortnightly to three or four-weekly.

It follows a similar decision by South Gloucestershire Council to cut collections of non-recyclable household waste from every two to three weeks.

The leaked council document said: "Through changes in regulation and increasing operational, inflation and investment costs, our waste and recycling service is facing an additional bill of £5 million to £9 million per year.

"Without cost reductions we may need to reduce services and performance standards. This amount will be reduced if we can recycle more and waste less."

It said the council had considered three options.

Keeping the service as it was would mean no reduction in carbon emissions from recycling and potential increased exposure to future carbon taxes.

It would also mean between £500,000 and £1 million would have to be spent on public educational campaigns to maintain current levels of performance.

Another proposal, reducing black bin collections to three-weekly, would boost the recycling rate by about six per cent, with about 40 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from collecting and treating waste and recycling.

This would result in a saving of about £1 million.

A third option, collecting black bins once every four weeks, would increase the recycling rate by 10 per cent and there would be a 50 per cent drop in carbon emissions, while an estimated £2million would be saved.

The proposals apply to households only, not businesses or flats with communal collections or mini-recycling centres where more support and service improvements would be provided to increase recycling, the document said.

Councillor Martin Fodor, Chair of the Environment and Sustainability Policy Committee, said: “The council faces a significant challenge to ensure that our city wastes less and recycles and reuses more if we are to build a cleaner more sustainable Bristol.

"At present, we recycle just over 45 percent of our city’s waste, more than triple the rate we were recycling two decades ago. Achieving the national goal of recycling at least 65 percent of municipal waste by 2035 means change needs to happen.

"This change needs to be in our city’s behaviours and attitude towards waste and recycling as well as changes in how we manage our city’s waste systems and the financing of such services."

Cllr Fodor added: "All options remain draft proposals at this stage and no decisions have been taken and no decision will be taken on significant changes to the future of waste and recycling services in our city without consulting with residents and engaging with businesses first."