Somerset Council has been given the green-light to roll out the collection of plastic bags and wrapping to more than 25,000 households.
The county has been part of the national FPF FlexCollect trial since May 2023 with around 3,500 residents in Frome having plastic bags and wrapping added to their weekly recycling collection.
From October 2024 a further 25,000 residents in and around Wells, Draycott, Frome and Chilcompton will benefit from getting these hard to recycle plastics collected from home.
New residents to the scheme will receive a pack of blue collection bags, alongside further information about what to collect.
Cllr Richard Wilkins, Executive Lead Member for Transport and Waste Services said:
Somerset residents have once again shown their enthusiasm to keep our county green and more sustainable. Frome householders have been among the highest participating areas of all local authorities involved in the project.
The success of phase one means that we can collect and recycle plastic bags and wrapping from thousands more people.
Look out for your collection bags arriving soon. If you do not receive any information, then your household is not part of the trial at this time.
Following the success of expanded Recycle More collections, Somerset Council successfully bid to be part of the national ‘FlexCollect’ kerbside collection trial of these plastic bags and wrapping.
In its first year, the Frome trial has seen 27 tonnes of soft plastics collected for recycling – about 95,000 collection bags.
The collections pick up a wide range of plastic bags and wrapping, including carrier bags, bread bags, confectionary wrappers, crisp packets, food wrapping and cling film. The plastics will be part of the usual weekly recycling collections, to be put out for collection in the plastic sacks provided to participating households.
At present, the only way to recycle plastic bags and wrapping is at supermarket front of store collection points.
The trial is part of a larger £3m Flexible Plastic Fund ‘FlexCollect’ project, which involves nine local authorities across England, and aims to inform government and industry on how plastic bags and wrapping should be added to existing household collection services.
In May 2024 the Government announced new ‘Simpler Recycling’ changes for England. Along with the same set of materials being collected across England by March 2025, the collection of plastic bags and wrapping from the kerbside is to be introduced by March 2027.
