Recycling sacks to replace bins for thousands

Thousands of residents living in Bristol will be receiving recycling sacks to put their rubbish in

Thousands of residents living in Bristol will receive recycling sacks to put their rubbish in instead of separate boxes.

About 8,000 homes in the city centre and along main roads will be given an orange sack, which all dry material should be thrown into.

The planned change is expected to be rolled out between April and June of next year and will affect properties such as flats above shops, where there is little space on busy pavements to store recycling bins.

Ken Lawson, the city council's head of waste and recycling, said: "It's a positive step to address properties across the city that have maybe been under-serviced and also caused disproportionate issues."

Affected roads would include East Street, North Street and Stapleton Road.

Properties there would also get a weekly black bin collection, in black sacks instead of bins, and weekly food waste collections in small brown caddies.

An update on the changes was given to councillors on 23 September and it was confirmed the new sacks would happen independently of the proposed switch to a three-weekly collection for black bins - with a decision on that change due to be made this December.

The change hopes to leave streets clearer of wheelie bins

The changes are expected to cost just under £440,00, which was paid for by a grant from the government's Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

A list of all the properties has already been prepared but not yet published.

Mixing all recycling together, known as "co-mingling", used to happen in many parts of the country before residents were asked to separate their materials into different boxes.

The drawback of co-mingling is recycling must be separated by the centres, before the different materials can be sold on to packaging producers, which is a more expensive and inefficient process than getting residents to do it, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

Earlier this year the council consulted the public on a controversial plan to collect general waste in black bins every three or four weeks, instead of every fortnight.

Councillors are now discussing the results of the consultation, before deciding what to do next. The Greens, who lead the council, have ruled out a four-weekly collection regime, with three-weekly looking likely.