Sheffield City Council is consulting on a range of proposed changes to its waste collection service, including introducing shared bins to high-density areas, in a bid to save £3.4 million from waste services by 2017.

The changes, which could affect every household in the city, are being proposed with the aims of saving the council money and making the waste management system more efficient in Sheffield.

The proposals under consideration include:

• introducing large, shared bins and removing individual bins in areas where there is limited space at each property to store bins (and there is space in the local area to provide shared bins);
• requiring all residents to use the blue box for recycling paper and card and the blue bin for recycling glass bottles and jars, cans and plastic bottles (some residents can currently choose to use the receptacles the other way around if they have more paper arisings, for example);
• introducing a limit of one blue box per household and removing the ability to leave extra paper and card recycling next to the recycling bins;
• introducing a £20 charge for residual waste bins replaced more than once (excepting those over state retirement age or those on income-related benefits);
• introducing a £20 charge for a new or replacement green bin for the chargeable garden waste service from 2016;
• requiring householders (apart from those with assisted service and those in flats) to wheel bins to the side of the road on collection day;
• changing collection times and days for recycling and residual waste collections (i.e. residual waste emptied on one day and recycling on another, but still on an alternate weekly basis);
• changing the requirement to return to cover any missed collections to within two working days (rather than one); and
• removing the side waste provision for the two collections after Christmas.

‘Increasing efficiency while still providing a good service’

Speaking of the proposals, Councillor Julie Dore, Leader of Sheffield City Council, said: “We as an authority have just agreed spending cuts of a huge £63 million in the coming financial year, due in no small part to the amount of funding we receive in our main government grant being slashed by 50 per cent since 2010.

“Part of our budget savings involve coming up with proposals for our waste service that increase efficiency where possible, while still providing a good service for everyone in the city.

“We welcome people’s views and will act upon them so that we do what is best for Sheffield in terms of waste management and recycling. I would urge as many people as possible to get involved with this consultation, so that when we make our final decisions we have [as] accurate a picture as possible of the views of communities across our city.”

The consultation is open until Wednesday, 1 April.

Find out more about Sheffield City Council’s waste consultation.