Officers explaining how the new wheeled bin recycling service will work in East Cambridgeshire have been impressed with the enthusiasm they have encountered from residents.

Over the last few weeks, staff from the Waste Services Team have been at events across the whole of the district such as Fordham Feast, Ely's Aquafest and a Farmers Market in Burwell to talk about the new service.

The vast majority of people have welcomed the new service and asked lots of questions about how the changes will work and when they will get their new bins.

Councillor Kevin Ellis, Chairman of the Waste & Environment sub-committee at East Cambridgeshire District Council, said: "It has been really encouraging to hear how the vast majority of East Cambridgeshire's residents are looking forward to the introduction of the new waste service. They have told us how they wanted a simple and effective way to recycle their waste as many had previously been put off recycling due to the complexities of the system.

"The beauty of the new service is that the two wheeled bins will take a variety of items for recycling and reuse. For example the green lidded garden and food waste bin will take anything from grass cuttings to meal leftovers and even bedding from your hamster, while the blue lidded recyclable bin will take junk mail, foil, plastic bottles as well as drink cartons, cardboard and glass. Officers from the Council will continue to visit locations across the district so if you have any questions please do not hesitate to speak to them."

The new service starting from September can be broken down as follows:

*       A new wheeled bin recycling collection, including paper, glass, food & drinks cans, plastic bottles & hard plastic food containers, cartons and cardboard. This will be collected fortnightly.
*       A new wheeled bin collection for organics to include food and garden waste. This will also be collected fortnightly.

The service will operate on an alternate week basis where residents will be asked to put one wheeled bin out for collection one week followed by their other bin the following week. This is addition to the weekly black sack waste collections.

Properties judged unable to accept wheeled bin services because of space or access issues will be offered an alternative service based on clear sacks for recycling and continuation of the existing brown sack service for food and garden waste.

There will also be a fleet of new vehicles for the new services as well as a rescheduling of rounds to reduce carbon emissions.

These changes are possible after East Cambridgeshire District Council successfully won £5 million from Central Government to fund a new recycling service and retain weekly waste collections last year.

For more information on the waste and recycling service in East Cambridgeshire please visit www.eastcambs.gov.uk or call 01353 665555