HOUSEHOLDS across Darlington have been receiving new recycling equipment this week ahead of the roll out of a new ‘alternate weekly collection’ service for the town.

The new system will see general rubbish collected one week, with recyclable waste – including glass, paper, cardboard, tins and plastics – collected the following week.

Darlington Borough Council expects to save £400,000 a year as a result of reduced numbers of collections and vehicles and lower landfill costs and higher recycling yields.

About 85 per cent of households in Darlington will receive a second wheelie bin for recyclable waste but the remainder will use a large box to collect recyclables because the recycling wagons are unable to fit down narrow alleys in parts of the town.

Ian Thompson, the council’s assistant director for community services, said the size of the recycling wagons and the need for different collection methods had been noted at an early stage and factored into the costs of the scheme.

He said: “The key difference is in the size of the vehicles and whether or not the wagon can make it around the narrow corners of some of the back lanes.

“For refuse vehicles we can buy a smaller version that is more manoeuvrable but the recycling vehicles have got compartments in the side as well as at the back to collect waste so they come in one size only.

“It means having two slightly different schemes for different property types but the end result is that people will have to recycle more.”

The council has reiterated that extra black bags left at the side of bins will not be collected, except at Christmas, but extra recycling – such as large cardboard from a new washing machine, for example - will be picked up from the side of the bin.

Mr Thompson added: “The more we can get people recycling the better it is for the environment and for the council because we get more money for clean recyclables.”

Asked about how the £400,000 of savings had been calculated, Mr Thompson said: “At the moment each household gets three visits every two weeks – two for refuse and one for recycling.

“In the new system you will get two visits a fortnight, one for recycling and one for waste. It adds up to the equivalent of about three rounds less a week, which means less vehicles are needed.”

Councillor Nick Wallis, cabinet member for local environment, said he hoped people would welcome the scheme and get used to it as quickly as they had when wheelie bins were introduced last year.

He added: “People hated the idea of wheelie bins but I think if you went to many of those people now and asked if they want to go back to black bags they would probably keep the bin.

“Landfill taxes are just going up and up and we hope that with increased recycling we will get the amount of waste going to landfill down to 20 per cent – before we started looking at this it was 80 per cent going to landfill so that can only be good for everyone.”