Every home in Wiltshire to have five bins by 2027

The new proposals could cost millions each year

New plans have been revealed that will impact how Wiltshire homeowners separate their waste.

Wiltshire Council has proposed each home will have five bins by 2025.

The cost of implementing the scheme – including collecting and processing the waste – would run into millions of pounds a year. But it would cost less than the penalties the council faces by sending waste to landfill, said councillor Paul Sample, cabinet member for environment, climate and waste.

In the future, people will need to separate paper and card from plastic bottles and cans, currently they are collected together as mixed recycling in blue lid bins.

"This is something we need to deal with as rapidly as we can," Sample said this week.

On recycling collection days, food waste will also be collected as will soft plastics, the latter of which Wiltshire Council will provide plastic bags for.

The remaining household waste will be collected normally in black bins, as per the current fortnightly collection schedule.

The five bins

This means each Wiltshire household is set to have:

• One full-size bin for plastic, metal and cartons

• One full-size bin for paper and card

• One box for glass

• One container – size as yet unspecified – for food waste

• One full-size bin for residual waste

• One plastic bag for soft plastics, which will be deposited inside one of the recycling bins

Councillor Paul Semple says income generated from recycling can be used to offset the costs of managing the waste

This week, Wiltshire Council's environment select committee was told 43% of the county's kerbside residual waste – rubbish not put out for recycling – is food waste.

Outside of the meeting, Sample told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: "Maximising recycling not only helps protect our environment, but any increase in income generated can also be used to offset the costs of managing the waste we all generate."

The committee agreed to form a task group to specifically look at waste collection and contracts.