South Holland’s waste chief highlights need for service to change to wheelie bins with missed collections and contaminated waste

Allowing residents to get rid of an unlimited amount of black bin bags is harming the environment and costing the ratepayer money — according to leading councillors.

Members of South Holland District Council’s cabinet will be deciding later this week whether to introduce wheelie bins and move away from the traditional collections of black and green bin bags.

While the Environment Act — with its requirements to boost recycling rates — is forcing the changes, leaders say South Holland’s current waste system is not working as it overspent by £215,000 in the last financial year and recycling targets have been missed.

During a three month period, up to 22% of waste put in green bags was contaminated by other items.

There were 150 cases during a three month period in the last year when a second collection run was needed as a lorry had reached its maximum weight due to the vast amounts of bags which had been left outside peoples’ homes. Waste from the black bins is taken to Boston while garden waste goes to Crowland and recycling heads to South Kesteven.

Three options will be going before cabinet on Thursday, June 26, but members have been recommended to go for ‘option b’ — which would see residents provided with 240-litre bins. One option has been scrapped, meaning both remaining choices involve ditching bags for bins.

Speaking ahead of the meeting, waste portfolio holder Jim Astill said: "As councillors occasionally we have to make difficult and unpopular decisions, and I acknowledge that those who want to keep bags will feel upset.

“Considering the Environment Act , our unlimited waste policy and the need for an effective and efficient service - it is clear that South Holland needs to change.

“One of the issues with the service at the moment is that households can put out an unlimited amount of waste. Our rounds are based upon on certain tonnage, once the vehicle is full the round for that day can’t be completed, we have to put on a second collection to complete off the round and that impacts residents collections and puts financial pressure on the council.

“Moving to a different collection regime will lead to a more efficient and effective service. But it is important to stress that we are not doing this purely for financial reasons - the driver is the introduction of weekly food waste collections and improved recycling through Simpler Recycling legislation"

As we reported last week, the Environment Act is forcing councils to make a number of changes, such as a mandatory weekly food waste collection from March 2026. It also demands paper and card are collected separately.

On top of this, the Government has told councils to reduce emissions by 2028. Bosses say this has an impact on waste services as black bin bags are incinerated.

Last year, the council conducted a survey which asked a number of questions, including if residents wanted to keep the current regime or move onto wheelie bins. This resulted in a narrow victory for bags when 51% of the 8,576 respondents voted in favour of keeping them.

It also revealed that more than 70% of people who responded wanted to recycle more — something seen as necessary given that this district has lower recycling rates than neighbours.

Recent figures on the council’s performance shows that just 28.79% of the waste collected in a three month period is recycled — which is a long way off the 45% target set by Government.

South Holland has also been falling short of its 14% target for contamination in recycled waste as everything goes into one sack with no separation.

Between April and June last year, 22% of the green recycled waste collected by South Holland was contaminated. It went down to 18.21% for the following quarter and 17.36% for the three months after that.

Coun Astill said: “Our contamination rates in relation to recycling is high, and we believe that separating out paper and card from dry recyclables will reduce that risk.

“Paper and card soak up everything so all you need is a drink bottle or milk carton that isn’t empty and that can ruin what’s in the whole bag."

A report to Thursday’s cabinet meeting recommends members approve a new service with 240-litre bins for residual waste, recycling and paper and card along with the mandatory food waste caddy (23litres).

The report says food waste will be collected weekly with residual (non recycled) waste on alternate weekly basis. Recycling and paper and card will be collected on an alternate fortnightly basis.

The other option for waste includes the introduction of 180-litre bins.

The report also states that the third option was “discounted due to the requirement to run additional fleet to enable a full round sack collection to continue. It is also considered that asking households to retain dry mixed recycling for four weeks in sacks is unlikely to improve recycling rates.”

The council would provide bins to residents and there could be exceptions for certain types of homes, such as flats or terraced housing with no back alleys, where bins would not be suitable.

There is currently no timeline of when the changes will be made to the service but new vehicles will need to be purchased along with the bins.