Smaller wheelie bins planned in Kirklees in bid to cut costs
Kirklees Council is trying to plug a budget black hole of almost £30m
To help plug a £29.3m black hole in its budget next year, Kirklees Council plans to replace every single grey household wheelie bin with a smaller alternative.
The plans, set out in the local authority’s draft budget report to tomorrow’s (December 10) Cabinet meeting, would see all Kirklees homes get a new 180-litre grey bin to replace the current 240-litre ones.
The council hopes this will encourage residents to manage waste better and reduce disposal costs, with projections showing the move is set to save £131,000 in the 2025/26 financial year and a further £395,000 in the year after that.
Councillor Moses Crook, deputy leader of Kirklees Council, said: “As part of the 2025-26 draft budget, a number of proposals have been put forward including replacing grey general waste wheelie bins with bins that are three-quarters of the current size.
“We want to find ways of making the service greener and more efficient and this is one way we might be able to do that, in line with changes being implemented across the region and nationally.
“This change will encourage more recycling in Kirklees and contribute to our climate commitments, while also reducing the cost of the service.
“Some councils have chosen to move to three-weekly or even monthly collections for residents. We want to keep the current frequency of collections while doing everything we can to increase recycling rates.
“If the new system is agreed, it would mean approximately 160,000 new bins across the district. But we spend money for every tonne of waste we don’t recycle so a reduction in the amount of waste we put into our grey bins will generate savings for local taxpayers and more than cover the cost of the bins.”
Aside from its plans for household bins, the council is proposing other money-saving and income generating measures in its draft budget for next year. Among these are a 4.99% increase in Council Tax, reviewing service charges across the council’s housing stock and making up to 100 redundancies.