Sandwell Council planning to cut bin collections to fortnightly

The changes would see household waste collected every two weeks instead of one, with recycling waste then collected in the intervening weeks.

Sandwell Council said the “vast majority” of waste goes into the borough’s black bins and is not recycled.

The local authority said the changes, due to come into effect from next year, would also save money as it looks to address a £20m gap to be able to balance its books next year.

Sandwell ranks among the worst areas for recycling in England with not only low levels of recycling but also high levels of contamination where the wrong waste is put in the wrong bins.

The council said having to dispose of waste was more expensive than recycling it.

New laws mean the council has to address its poor recycling performance or could face “significant costs and penalties in the future".

Sandwell Council’s 25-year contract with waste firm Serco is worth around £650m.

Councillor Keith Allcock, cabinet member for environment and highways at Sandwell Council, said: “These proposed changes would enable us to meet new legislative requirements and bring Sandwell in line with the vast majority of councils across the country who have stopped collecting residual waste every week.

"Too much of what goes into our bins in Sandwell at the moment ends up being incinerated, so through these changes we hope to make it easier to recycle more of our waste.

“At the same time, the council needs to make savings to close our budget gap and the proposed new model would save money by reducing the cost of collecting waste, and reduce the amount we have to spend to dispose of waste.”

Sandwell said it is the only council in the West Midlands that still has weekly collections, with only a handful of remaining authorities already revealing plans to make the switch.

An email to councillors explaining the decision, seen by the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS), said the plans were the “biggest changes to Sandwell’s waste collections in more than a decade".

The changes would see general waste bins collected every other week with recycling collected in separate bins on alternate weeks.

Sandwell’s residents would also be given a new bin for paper and card waste with glass, cans and plastic recycled using another.

The e-mail said: “Whilst these changes are being considered as part of the budget setting process, fundamentally the proposal is to ensure Sandwell is compliant with The Environment Act 2021 which requires significant changes to be made to waste and recycling service and to avoid significant costs and penalties in the future.

“The proposed model is considered optimal to improve recycling rates, to reduce the contamination of recycling, to increase the efficiency of waste collections, reduce carbon emissions from collection and disposal, to ensure legislative compliance and to reduce the cost of both collecting and disposing of waste.”

The council’s deputy leader Councillor Paul Moore said: “Each year, the council is legally required to set a balanced budget. In recent years this has become more difficult.

"Like all local authorities, we face significant financial pressure from the rising demand for our services, particularly for the support we provide vulnerable adults and children.

"At the same time, our costs are also going up due to inflation.

“Sandwell is not yet facing the extreme financial difficulties that some other local authorities are already dealing with.

"However, with the rising demand for our services we know that we must continue to manage our finances responsibly to avoid falling into these difficulties.”

The council’s leader Councillor Kerrie Carmichael ruled out a move to fortnightly collections last year, but after 12 months, the Labour-led Black Country authority is now pushing ahead with the plans.

Councillor Carmichael said “nothing was off the table” ahead of last year’s budget-setting, including changes to bin collections, but later quelled strong rumours over the controversial switch after receiving confirmation from the then Tory local government minister Michael Gove over the council’s budget settlement.

After the announcement, Councillor Carmichael said the bin collection changes were ‘never in Labour’s plan in spite of further Tory cuts’ and accused Conservatives in Sandwell of “scaremongering.”

The budget still included £19m cuts, a near five per cent rise in council tax as well as increases in rent. Charges for green bin garden waste collections were also introduced in Sandwell in 2023.

The authority signed a 25-year contract worth £650m with waste giant Serco after outsourcing services in 2010.

The deal between the troubled council and the giant waste firm, which collects rubbish from more than 135,000 households across Sandwell, has regularly come under fire with the performance of the firm, and the management of its contract, labelled “deeply unsatisfactory.”

A “revolving door of senior managers,” and the “unacceptable disruption” of strikes in 2021, 2022 and 2023, were all part of wide-ranging criticism levelled at the firm in recent years.