About the consultation
We consulted on possible changes to bin collections to Central Bedfordshire houses (not flats) from 26 February to 20 April 2018. The consultation is now closed.
The options that were being considered included:
- new approaches to fortnightly recycling collections
- weekly food waste collection for everyone
- collection of domestic waste (black bins) once every three weeks
- optional year-round fortnightly collection of garden waste, which customers would be charged for
In order to fully understand the views of the residents of Central Bedfordshire, we undertook an extensive consultation exercise which received over 15,086 responses.
The approach included:
- household leaflets delivered across Central Bedfordshire and inviting 211,000 residents to give their views on options around future recycling and waste services
- a written survey, open to all residents, and available online and through paper copies
- a telephone survey with a sample of 1,200 people who are representative of the whole population
- a series of discussion groups with residents from towns and villages across Central Bedfordshire
- a series of drop in sessions to answer residents' queries and encourage participation in the consultation
A summary of the headline results are set out below:
- there are some consistent themes from all of the consultation methods
- almost everyone (95%) agreed it is important to help people to recycle as much as possible
- the majority agreed (53%) that savings should be found from these services
- on recycling, retaining the status quo was the least preferred option (46%)
- the majority supported both the alternatives (separating paper and card (67%) and glass collections (55%))
- the majority of respondents’ (65%) supported food waste collection for households across Central Bedfordshire
- the majority (57%) do not support three weekly black bin collections, although over a third (36%) did
- 38% of those that didn’t support this option said that the retention of free garden waste collection would change their opinion
- the introduction of charges for green waste collection was the least preferred option with less than a third (32%) supporting it
- 29% of those that didn’t support this option said that the retention of fortnightly black bin collection would change their opinion
- comments in the surveys and focus groups highlighted some of the practical issues and concerns residents raised about each of the options and how some of these could be mitigated