Door-to-door waste collection service introduced in West Norfolk

West Norfolk inhabitants are expecting details of the brand new waste collection system that is being launched in their area - the first of this type in the country.

The innovative scheme is a bid by the council to save a staggering £1.1 million in just the next eight years.

Starting on April 2 of next year, West Norfolk council will be making a weekly food collection which will allow households to dispose of their unwanted, (or, more realistically, uneaten), food.

At the moment most households do not dispose of excess food correctly, and this is both costly and environmentally harmful.

“Research shows that around a third of the waste in the black bin is actually food. By collecting this separately and sending it to be turned into compost, vastly reduced the amount of waste sent to land fill,” said Brian Long, council cabinet member for the environment.

Additionally, the standard-sized black bins will be replaced with far larger containers.

At the moment, West Norfolk is synonymous with most other British households which have containers that hold 140 litres of waste.

Under the new service these standard sized black bins will be replaced by containers that are almost double the size and able to hold a whopping 240 litres.

The reason behind the increase in size is that collections will no longer be weekly. Instead, waste removal men will only pick up black bins once every two weeks. They will alternate between picking up recycling bins and black bins on a fortnightly basis.

"The introduction of alternate weekly collections has been proven elsewhere to increase the amount that people recycle," Mr Long said.

Those who feel that they wouldn't fill up such a large black bin are invited to keep their standard sized bin when the swap does happen next year.

"The new service will also reduce our costs by a further £500,000 per year, enabling us to keep our element of the council tax bill down," he said.