South Lanarkshire Council has begun delivering new food waste and recycling bins to its residents ahead of a recycling service overhaul, which will see paper collected separately for the first time.

From today (18 May), around 30,000 food waste caddies and grey wheelie bins will be delivered to residents in Hamilton, Quarter, Bothwell, Uddingston and Blantyre for use in a new collection service, which will begin next month.

The food service is being brought in to comply with the Scottish Government’s statutory requirement for all local authorities to provide a separate food waste collection to residents in ‘non-rural areas’ from 1 January 2016.

As part of the new service, residents will be required to place all food waste into biodegradable food liners (provided free of charge by the council), which can be collected in new indoor burgundy food caddies before being decanted into the external burgundy wheelie bin (currently used for separate glass collections). This bin will also be used for green waste collections.

Paper to be collected separately

As the burgundy bin is to become the organic waste bin, glass will need to be placed in new grey wheelie bins, which will also be used for the collection of metal cans and aerosols, plastic bottles, and hard plastics (such as butter containers).

The existing blue wheelie bins (currently used for co-mingled recyclables, excluding glass), will then be used solely for the paper and cardboard.

The council has opted to collect paper and card separately to ‘ensure that it remains clean and uncontaminated’. This decision was taken after it was found that paper reprocessors often pay more for separately-collected paper than paper from co-mingled collections, as it usually requires less cleaning and produces less rejected material.

All recycling will be collected once a fortnight, on alternate weeks with residual waste, which will continue to be collected in black/grey wheelie bins (depending on property type).

However, the council has warned that as the first stage of the new system is put in place, the residual waste bin uplift may alter from regular collection dates. Residents are being advised to check uplift dates in the information booklet supplied with the food waste caddies, or to refer to the council’s ‘changes to your bins’ page.

All householders expected to be on new system by ‘end of 2016’

The system will then be rolled out to residents in flatted properties in the Hamilton area in September 2015 (although flats will use communal outdoor food waste bins and the existing blue bin service for dry recyclables, excluding glass), to residents in East Kilbride between January and April 2016, and to those in the with Rutherglen and Cambuslang areas between May and August 2016.

The final phase of the roll out will take place between September and December 2016 in Ferniegair, Larkhall, Ashgill, Stonehouse and the towns and villages in the Clydesdale area.

It is expected that around 133,000 households will be using the new scheme by the end of next year.

The council has said it hopes the new service will boost the local recycling rate from 45.6 per cent (in 2014) to 60 per cent by 2020, in line with the Scottish Government’s targets.

‘We’re asking for everyone’s cooperation’

Councillor Hamish Stewart, Chair of the council’s Community Services Committee, said: “We know this new service will take a bit of getting used to, and we’re asking for everyone’s cooperation and patience as we introduce the changes.

“Not only are we obliged by law to do this, but the move is good for the environment, helping us to meet Scottish Government recycling targets.”

He added that “feedback on the new service is vital to its success”, so the council will be undertaking customer satisfaction and participation surveys alongside waste tonnage and composition analysis during the initial Hamilton phase of the new collection scheme to “help the next phases in the roll out”.

Find out more about the changes to the recycling collections or the new recycling system for flats.