North Yorkshire Council has spent £1 million on 55,000 new wheelie bins.

The council recently approved an overhaul of its waste collection system, which included introducing up to four wheelie bins across the county.

The authority wants to standardise bin collections after inheriting different systems from the seven district councils it replaced, including Harrogate Borough Council, last year.

The overhaul is expected to cost £8 million, which includes purchasing new bins and communicating the changes with residents. More bins are expected to be purchased after the first batch.

The new system is expected to save £561,000 a year, meaning it will take 13 years to recoup costs.

According to the government’s procurement portal, the council has contracted Staffordshire-based IPL Plastics Limited to supply 55,000 two-wheeled 240 litre bins.

The contract includes 27,500 blue lid bins and 27,500 red lid bins. Both will have grey bodies.

Under the new system, each household in the Harrogate district will have three bins each or four if they pay for the garden waste service.

The only bin that will remain the same locally is the grey-lid residual waste bin. 

The blue bags will be replaced by blue-lid bins for paper and card; red-lid bins will replace the blue-lid bins for dry mixed recycling and people who pay for garden waste collections will see their brown-lid bins replaced by green-lid bins.

A council report explaining the changes said the chosen bin colour scheme is becoming increasingly common among local authorities, with Milton Keynes and Cheshire West Councils recently implementing it.

Regarding the impact on the Harrogate district, the report says:

The Stray Ferret has reported extensively on the changes to bin collections under the council's harmonisation agenda, including changing how frequently waste is collected.

You can read our reports here and here.