Wheelie bins are on the way in East Cambridgeshire, to help address our area’s appalling recycling record – the worst in the county.

Over the course of the next six weeks or so, the council will be carrying out a survey of all properties in the district.  Clearly they can’t visit every property, so this will largely be a desk exercise – spatial mapping, aerial photographs, and so on, though some of it may be done on foot – and they hope to have it completed at the end of May or so.

Once that is done, the information will be uploaded to the council’s web site, and there will also be a publicity campaign. Residents should then be able to visit the website to see whether or not their home is expected to house the new bins, or contact the council by phone once the information is ready (not yet, as they won’t have the data). The council can then explore options.

The kind of properties that are likely to be judged unsuitable for wheelie bins include flats, terraces with no rear access, communal properties, or properties with slopes and steps. The council will also talk to its existing waste collection contractors to take a view on some properties.

The more properties can house the new bins, the better the improvement in recycling rates is likely to be – though the arrangements the council is putting in place are a strange half-way house with black sacks for non-recyclables as well as wheelie bins for recyclable waste.  But if you know your property can’t accommodate wheelie bins, you’ll have the chance to discuss this with the council before too long.