SAVINGS of £100,000 a year will be made when some bin collection days change next month. Nearly every one of the 70,000 homes in Huntingdonshire – already one of the most successful recycling districts in the country – will be affected by the changes to c

SAVINGS of £100,000 a year will be made when some bin collection days change next month.

Nearly every one of the 70,000 homes in Huntingdonshire - already one of the most successful recycling districts in the country - will be affected by the changes to collections of wheeled bins, green boxes and sacks.

Householders in the district already recycle 53 per cent of their refuse. Last year, at less than 50 per cent, they were the fifth most eco-friendly in England.

This year, they may be set to knock South Cambridgeshire and a couple of other eastern England authorities off the top spots.

But success has come at a price. With more material being discarded in blue bins and small green boxes, crews have been stretched.

Other crews on the grey-bin landfill run have returned to base and had to clean out the vehicles before going out to help with the recycling runs.

Now more vehicles will be devoted to recyclable collections, meaning collection days have to be re-scheduled.

Grey bins and green garden waste bin collections will continue to alternate on the same day of the week, with blue bins and green boxes emptied on another day in alternate weeks.

The change coincides with the refuse department's move to a new depot in north-west Huntingdon that will relieve the main streets of Godmanchester of their daily procession of dustcarts, except on their own collection days.

HDC head of operations Robert Ward said: "Because we introduced the wheeled bin refuse and recycling service gradually over quite a long period of time, we left the day of collection unchanged.

"That way, residents had to get used only to using the new service, without having to worry about what day the collections would be.

"The service is now operating successfully across the whole district, and the weights and volumes that each part of the service is generating have now settled down sufficiently for us to be able to reschedule collections to make the best possible use of the resources we use to run the service."

Details of new collection arrangements are not yet finalised.

Councillor Colin Hyams, executive councillor for operations, said: "The new arrangements will reduce the number of vehicles needed and will generate savings of £100,000 a year.

"The current principle of grey and green bins being collected on the same day on alternate weeks, so food waste can be put into either bin in hot weather - a key issue for many residents - will be retained.