Wheelie bins coming to East Cambridgeshire after Government approves �5million funding

The funding, from the Department for Communities and Local Government, means residents will be able to recycle more of their household waste, with the new service being introduced in late 2013 or early 2014.

Although the weekly black bag service will remain in place, the current setup for recycling using the brown sack and black box collection system will be replaced with:

* A new wheeled bin recycling collection, including paper, glass, metal cans, plastics, cartons and cardboard. This will be collected fortnightly.

* A new wheeled bin collection for organics to include food and garden waste. This will also be collected fortnightly.

* A fleet of new vehicles for the new services as well as a rescheduling of rounds to reduce carbon emissions.

East Cambridgeshire District Council hopes the new system will help it improve its recycling rate, which has dropped to less than 40 per cent in recent years following cuts to its budget.

The work to put in place the new system will include a survey of all households in the district to identify anyone whose property would not be suitable for the new service. These homes would retain the current black box and brown sack collection service while other households would convert to the wheeled bin service.

Councillor Richard Hobbs, chairman of the community and environment committee at the district council, said: “Winning the funding to improve our recycling service is fantastic news. In a recent public consultation we had overwhelming support for our plans so it is great to know we can now deliver a recycling service which people want.

“The task ahead of us now is to bring the service in as soon as we can. This will mean a lot of hard work from buying the vehicles and wheeled bins to deliver the service to identifying the homes which will not be suitable for the service.

“We hope to complete this by next summer and have the service up and running from late 2013 or early 2014.”