News / recycling
Council decide not to move to three-weekly black bin collection
Black bins in Bristol will still be collected fortnightly after councillors discarded the option of moving to a three-weekly collection.
Several councils across the country are switching to collecting general waste every three weeks, but this switch has now been ruled out in Bristol.
Bristol City Council bosses floated the idea at the start of 2025 in a push to drive up recycling rates.
A public consultation showed around two-thirds of people opposed these changes and wanted to stick with a fortnightly collection schedule.
The changes would have affected households who get rubbish collected at the kerbside, rather than people who live in flats with large communal bins.
Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative councillors opposed the switch, which the Greens were still supporting.
A three-weekly collection was vetoed by councillors on the environment policy committee, making it the second time in a row the Greens have failed to get cross-party support on this committee for controversial proposals, after a potential Clean Air Zone fee hike.
Labour councillor Kirsty Tait said: “Crucially, we know that 71 per cent of residents said they do not want to shift to three-weekly collections.
“If we pride ourselves on listening to our communities, then that number matters.
“Right now, this proposal risks putting the stick before the carrot, tightening collections before showing we’ve used every available option to strengthen our recycling and reduce waste.
“How can we justify pressing ahead with a model that the public clearly does not want?”
Green councillor Izzy Russell said: “I wouldn’t just take people’s response at a consultation, particularly one that had been egged on by a public petition dramatising the issue.
“I wouldn’t take that to be the only thing the public cares about, because at the end of the day, they do want cleaner streets and better recycling.
“And if this is the way that we get to it, then maybe we make ourselves unpopular for six months and then it gets better.
“The national government should also take some more responsibility around the UK’s waste in general.
“We should be taxing businesses more on plastic production. We’re obviously living in a society that’s producing much more waste than we’re built for.”
At the start of 2025, the council initially also consulted on collecting black bins once every four weeks, as well as three weeks.
Labour started a petition against monthly bin collections, attracting more than 12,000 signatures, and the Greens then said they would not support a four-weekly collection schedule.
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
Our newsletters emailed directly to you
