We are looking at making changes to our waste and recycling bin collection services to increase the amount Sandwell recycles and save money.
Sandwell’s current recycling performance is very poor. We don’t recycle as much as we should and what is recycled is often contaminated with items that have been put in the wrong bin. As part of our budget consultation, we are proposing to make changes to our waste collection services by:
- Boosting recycling rates by changing how we collect your weekly waste, alternating between refuse one week and recycling the next week, and;
- Improving the quality of recycling by separating recyclable materials into two different containers (paper and card in one new container and glass, cans and plastics in the existing blue-lid bin).
The vast majority of councils across the country do not offer recycling and residual waste collections every week.
Too much of what goes in our bins ends up being incinerated – just 29% of our waste is recycled compared to a national average of 41%. During 2022/23, Sandwell ranked 309 out of 343 councils across England for recycling. Not recycling waste that can be recycled means this material is forever lost and it ends up being incinerated. Not only that, disposing of waste is much more expensive than recycling it.
There are also a range of new legislative requirements coming that will make it even more important to address Sandwell’s poor recycling rates. These changes will mean it will cost the council more to dispose of waste if we don’t improve the amount that we recycle.
At the same time, the council needs to make savings to address a £20million gap in our budget.
Each year, the council is legally required to set a balanced budget.
In recent years this has become more difficult. Like all local authorities, we face significant financial pressure from the rising demand for our services, particularly for the support we provide vulnerable adults and children. At the same time, our costs are also going up due to inflation.
Sandwell is not yet facing the extreme financial difficulties that some other local authorities are already dealing with. However, with the rising demand for our services we know that we must continue to manage our finances responsibly to avoid falling into these difficulties.
These proposed changes to bin collections would save money by reducing the cost of collecting waste, and also reduce the amount we have to spend to dispose of waste.
The proposed change to waste collection was one of the options included in the council’s budget consultation for 2025/26. Thank you to everyone who completed our budget consultation. We'll report back on this in the coming months.
Find out more about proposed changes to waste collection service