Introduction of food waste collections agreed by Cabinet
The introduction of weekly kerbside food waste collections from October 2025 has been agreed by Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council’s Cabinet, meeting tonight (Tuesday 30 July).
The new weekly food waste collection service will allow residents to take more out of their grey bin while Hampshire County Council progresses plans for new and better waste sorting facilities so that more can go in green recycling bins.
The Cabinet agreed to extend the existing waste collection contract with Serco to empty the borough’s bins for an additional eight years from October 2025, together with remodelling the service to meet the council’s challenging statutory targets to cut waste as a collection authority.
This will see new style weekly collections – with food waste emptied every week alongside what is left in the grey bin one week and recycling the next – from September 2026.
The government’s Environment Act 2021 aims to make what is collected for recycling more consistent across the country, increasing what can be collected at the kerbside, as well as reducing the amount of packaging that just gets thrown away.
Under the act, all councils must make changes to drive up recycling, including bringing in mandatory food waste collections. Introducing the new service next October would put Basingstoke and Deane ahead of the 2026 target set by the act.
Basingstoke and Deane currently has a recycling rate of just 29%, sitting 269th out of 317 authorities across England and fourth from bottom in Hampshire.
Cabinet Member for Residents’ Services and Housing Cllr Laura James said: “The changes we agreed will mean Basingstoke and Deane can catch up with the vast majority of other councils, as well as meeting the legal deadlines, doing the right thing for the environment and providing value for money for residents. We take the climate emergency pledge, that all councillors agreed, very seriously.
“Basingstoke is at the bottom of the recycling tables. We want to see our recycling rates go up and the only way to do this is to help residents to recycle more and put less into their grey bins.
“We will have to recycle more than twice the amount we do now within 10 years under national targets, as well as more than halving the tonnage of waste we collect. There is a huge shift change we all need to make to meet the government’s targets.
“Introducing food waste collections could boost the borough’s recycling rate from 29% to as high as 52%. And our recycling rate will rise even higher with further changes being proposed by Hampshire County Council. Government require us to hit 65% recycling by 2035.”
“We want to help residents understand all of these changes, and so that is why we have phased the introduction of the different services and changes. That phasing will enable us to effectively communicate with residents and support them to use the new food waste service before changing to different weekly collections for the grey and green bins.”
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