Fury as more than one in ten UK councils could slash frequency of bin collections – will you be affected?

5 February 2025, 08:52 | Updated: 5 February 2025, 08:56

Around a tenth of councils in the UK are considering reducing their number of bin collections.

42 local authorities are looking at monthly services instead of once every two weeks - potentially affecting around eight million people, data from the TaxPayers' Alliance shows.

In addition, over 800,000 could have their weekly recycling service cut to fortnightly or monthly.

The news has sparked frustration as many of us are seeing our council tax bills rise.

Read our full list below to see if your street will be affected.

Thirteen councils plan to extend fortnightly residual waste collections to three-weekly.

These include:

• Babergh Council
• Caerphilly Council
• Cheshire East Council
• Dundee Council
• East Dunbartonshire Council
• East Hertfordshire Council
• East Suffolk Council
• Flintshire Council
• Mid Sussex Council,
• North Hertfordshire Council
• North Somerset Council
• North Warwickshire Council
• Teignbridge Council

Four councils plan to cut their weekly recycling waste collections to fortnightly.

• Lewisham Council
• New Forest
• Oadby and Wigston Council
• Sandwell Council

Two councils plan to extend three-weekly recycling collections to four-weekly.

• North Ayrshire Council
• Dundee Council

North Hertfordshire Council plans to extend fortnightly recycling waste collections to three-weekly.

Seven councils plan to cut their weekly residual waste collections to fortnightly.

These are:

• Allerdale Council
• Arun Council
• Basingstoke & Deane Council
• Birmingham Council
• New Forest
• Oadby and Wigston Council
• Sandwell Council

Two councils plan to shift from three-weekly to four-weekly residual waste collections.

These include:

• East Ayrshire Council
• Carmarthenshire Council

Ten councils are planning changes but proposed changes have not been released yet.

'Ever-growing mountains of waste'

Joanna Marchong, investigations campaign manager of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: “Residents will be left wondering what to do when the bin lorries don’t show up and the rubbish piles high.

“A shocking number of councils are considering cutting collections, which would leave people facing ever-growing mountains of waste.

“Town halls need to stop making a mess of basic services and focus on delivering what taxpayers pay for.”

Shadow minister for local government Kevin Hollinrake said the data proves voters in Labour local authority areas “pay more and get less”.

He described it as another promise "shamelessly broken by this Labour government".