Changes to waste collections
We’re starting to collect garden waste and non-recyclable waste (or “rubbish”) from homes every three weeks, instead of every two weeks.
We plan for these changes to start taking place from Monday 19 June 2023, completing the rollout by the end of autumn 2023.
Before the changes take place where you live, we’ll deliver to you a letter confirming the date from when we’ll make these changes, and a calendar showing your new collection dates for these services.
See which streets are in phase one of the rollout
We’ll continue to collect your:
- food waste and ‘dry recycling’ every week, and
- nappy and hygiene waste every two weeks, if you’re registered for this service.
Your ‘dry recycling’ includes your:
- glass bottles and jars, and small electrical items,
- mixed metals and plastics, including:
- metal cans, tins, aerosols and foil,
- plastic bottles, pots, tubs and trays, and
- food and drink cartons (such as Tetra Pak and crisp tubes),
- cardboard and paper, and
- clothes.
If you live in a flat, or a house of multiple occupation (that is, a shared house or flat), with communal bins, we’ll work with you and your landlord to introduce the changes to your garden waste (where this applies) and non-recyclable waste collections. You’ll receive information about any changes to your collections before they take place.
Contact a member of our dedicated engagement and enforcement team, to get advice and guidance to help you recycle more effectively.
Contact our engagement and enforcement team
Why we are making these changes
Welsh Government has set targets for Welsh councils to recycle 70% of household waste by 2025. Our current recycling rate is 67%, and we need to recycle more.
Many councils in Wales have already introduced less frequent collections for non-recyclable waste and it’s resulted in large improvements to their recycling rates, with several other councils also considering this change.
Recycling rates in Newport have significantly improved during the last 15 years, increasing from 20% to 67%, and Newport is already one of the best performing cities in the UK for recycling. However, we must further increase our recycling rate to 70% to avoid being charged a heavy fine. Based on our current recycling performance, we could be fined more than £0.5M for every year we fail to meet this target.
Also, we spend more than £2.2M to dispose of non-recyclable waste every year, but new data shows that almost 40% of it could have been easily recycled at home.
If you sort your waste and recycle all you can using our separate recycling collections every week, you’ll have less leftover rubbish to put in your bin for non-recyclable waste.
By reducing how often we collect your leftover non-recyclable waste, and your garden waste, we’ll also be able to reduce the resources we need to collect and treat it, including staff time and fuel for our vehicles. We estimate the changes we’re making will save around £320K each year.
By reducing the distance we travel, it will also reduce the amount of pollution emitted by vehicles and lower our carbon emissions, which helps prevent climate change.
When we recycle our waste and it becomes new items, we also use less energy compared to using ‘new’ or ‘virgin’ materials.
For more information about the changes, read our frequently asked questions.