‘Look out for your letter’ is the message from Somerset Council as recycling and rubbish collection days change for more than 120,000 households in western parts of the county in February.

New collection routes are being introduced for many homes in the former Sedgemoor and Somerset West and Taunton areas, as well as a small part of South Somerset.

This means many homes in these areas will have a change in collection days from the week beginning Monday 12 February 2024. Changes will be made for the rest of the county later in the year.

Being brought in by the council’s contractor, Suez recycling and recovery UK, the new routes will make rounds more efficient, more manageable for crews whilst reducing mileage and carbon emissions. The changes come at no cost to the council.

Residents may have:

• a change to collection day
• a change in the week that their rubbish is collected (it will still be collected once every three weeks)

If a household’s collection days are changing they will receive a letter in early January making this clear. This will be followed by a service guide – including a collection day calendar – arriving near the end of January. Look out for this and save it for future reference as this will show your new collection day.

If a household does not get a letter at the start of January, there will be no changes to its collection days but it will still receive a service guide including collections calendar near the end of the month.

There will be no changes to collection days for garden waste subscribers, clinical waste collections, or communal property collections with shared collections such as blocks of flats. Crews will still provide assisted collections.

Some residents having a change of collection may also have an additional one-off Saturday collection of their rubbish on either 10, 17 or 24 February. This will be made clear in the letter they receive at the start of January and is to make sure no-one goes more than three weeks between rubbish collections as crews move to the new routes. If there is no mention of an additional one off collection of rubbish in the letter then household’s will not need one.

Councillor Dixie Darch, Executive Lead Member for Climate and Environment said:

Look out for your letter and service guide, take note of your collection day. If you don’t receive a letter this means that your day is staying the same.

The changes will make rounds more efficient and manageable for crews, whilst reducing mileage and carbon emissions. That comes at no cost to the council and will help towards making the county greener and more sustainable.

Please make a note of your new collection day and possible interim rubbish collection. Crews can’t return for missed collections where bins are not out on the right day.

Residents with questions about the changes can head to Reroute of waste collections page for further information. The online collection day look-up feature will be updated from Monday 12 February.

If residents have downloaded their collection calendar to a smartphone they will need to do this again after 12 February.