New wheelie bins arrive in waste collection change

Wokingham Borough Council aims to get a bin to every household by the end of July

More than 60,000 black wheelie bins are being delivered to a town which is changing the way it deals with rubbish.

Wokingham Borough Council has told residents not to use the new bins until 12 August and to keep putting rubbish out in their blue bags for now.

It aims to get a bin to every household by the end of July.

Crews will put the bins together in streets across Wokingham and the council said: "If you see a stack of unassembled bins in your street, don’t help yourself."

It added: "We need this new system because of the enormous environmental benefits.

"Figures show that most other local authorities have massively increased their recycling rates by modernising waste collections, and we’ve got to keep pace."

From mid-August, the new rubbish bins will be emptied every two weeks.

The local authority will continue to collect recycling every two weeks from the usual green bags, on weeks when rubbish is not collected.

Food waste collections will remain weekly.

In July 2023 the council said "less used" bins will be emptied once instead of twice a week and areas around bottle banks will be cleaned once weekly instead of twice.

This was announced as a way for the authority to save money.