City's four-weekly bins collections idea 'dropped'
Support has been dropped for a plan to make Bristol the first major city in England to collect black waste bins every four weeks.
The Green Party, which runs Bristol City Council, put forward the controversial option - among others - in a public consultation in January to crackdown on food waste going in the wrong bins.
The council previously said around a quarter of most black bin rubbish was food which could be recycled.
Councillors will debate a cross-party petition on the issue on Tuesday.
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The petition created by the council's Labour Party called for the proposed changes to be shelved and has been signed by more than 12,000 people.
Currently, black bins in Bristol are collected every two weeks but a public consultation proposed a series of changes to improve falling recycling rates - including cutting collections to either three times per month or four.
Many English local authorities already have three-week collections.
Switching to a three-weekly black bin collection would save the council £1.3m a year, while a four-weekly collection would save £2.3m, the council had previously said.
Councillor Martin Fodor, chair of the environment committee, said: "The four-weekly option was put in the consultation as an outlier for modelling purposes and I made clear it was always unlikely to go ahead.
"Based on what we've heard and the strength of feeling that this has generated across the city, the Greens will not be supporting any proposals put forward to move to four-weekly collections at this time."
Councillor Tom Renhard, Labour leader on the council, said: "It has been clear from the start that this policy is totally unworkable.
"The Greens dropping it will be a relief to all, particularly those with larger families or newborns, who need fortnightly black bin collections."
He added: "Waste and recycling collection is the one service that every council tax payer uses and relies upon; it needs to be protected from their cuts."
The results of the public consultation, which ended on Monday, will be presented to a cross-party group of councillors who will decide on any changes at an unknown date.
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Bristol considers four-weekly bins collections
Black bin collections 'may be cut to once a month'
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