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Six thousand households across North Somerset will receive a reuseable bag for recycling plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, and metal packaging such as tins, cans, foil and aerosols.
The new red recycling bag is being delivered to trial households over the next two weeks, with full instructions included in a leaflet inside the bag. Households can start using their new bag straight away, alongside their existing recycling boxes.
Cllr Annemieke Waite, executive member for waste, said: “Our new reuseable bag aims to make recycling much easier for households and our hardworking collection crews. Plastic and cans will go in the new bag, paper and cardboard in one recycling box, glass in the other, and food waste in the brown container.
“This trial is in response to feedback from our recent waste consultation, where residents told us that they’d like more space for recycling and for it to be simpler to sort. Better sorted recycling is higher quality and worth more money, which helps cover the cost of collections and generates an income to fund vital local services.”
The households selected for the trial are from the following areas of North Somerset: Failand, Leigh Woods, Long Ashton, Portbury, Portishead, plus Haywood Village, Weston Village and West Wick in Weston-super-Mare. A full list of roads taking part is on the council website at www.n-somerset.gov.uk/bagtrial.
The trial will also investigate if the new bags help speed up collection times for crews, which would provide a more reliable service and reduce congestion on busy roads.
Other councils already using similar recycling bags have found they provide a good solution for the storage and collection of recycling, plus reduce litter.
If the trial is successful, the bag will be rolled out to all North Somerset households at the same time as the council introduces three-weekly black bin collections in 2025.