Leeds launches new food waste bin trial as brown bin collections go year-round
Leeds City Council has announced details of a new food waste collection trial, which is set to start shortly. It also issued an update on rumoured changes to bin collections in the city.
The authority has received funding from the government as part of a drive to keep food waste separate from the general black waste bin.
The funding will enable Leeds to launch a trial of a new system, allowing residents to dispose of food waste in their brown garden waste bins. Additionally, brown bin collections will now operate year-round.
Set to start at the end of February, the trial will be held around the Wetherby and Collingham area, which are located closest to where mixed food and garden waste will be processed.
Households in the trial area will be contacted by the council shortly with more information and will receive a new kitchen food waste caddy to support the service.
If successful, the council will look to roll out the scheme to all households in the city that have brown bins. It will also offer the brown bin service to more households.
For households where a brown bin is not suitable, the council is exploring alternative methods to provide a separate food waste collection service.
Leeds City Council has also addressed a rumour that a fourth bin would be introduced along with new fines for households.
Leeds City Council’s executive member for climate, energy, environment and green space, Councillor Mohammed Rafique, said: “We are aware of information and rumours circulating regarding an additional fourth bin and new fines possibly being introduced.
“We would like to stress neither of these elements are true for Leeds, we remain fully committed to keeping to the current three-bin approach to keep things as simple as possible for our residents while continuing to encourage recycling through green bins and the household waste recycling centres.
“Developing our existing brown bin service for food waste collections along with garden waste is an interesting and exciting development, so we look forward to the new trial service starting shortly to see how effective it is.”
It added that the council remains fully committed to supporting and encouraging residents and businesses to recycle as much of their waste as possible. It added: “With glass now being able to recycled via household green bins, Leeds is ahead of schedule in terms of meeting national requirements for glass, metals, paper, card and plastics to be recycled as part of kerbside bin collections.
“Leeds residents can already recycle plastic film, well ahead of the 2027 deadline around that material. There are therefore no plans to move away from this successful approach and Leeds will continue with the one green recycling bin.”