A MOVE to fortnightly garden waste collections will cause a spike in fly-tipping, a councillor has warned.

Basildon Councill is moving to separate food and garden waste collections, with food collected weekly but garden waste moving from weekly to fortnightly collections.

The council says the plans make the service greener and reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill.  

READ MORE

But councillor Kerry Smith has warned residents with large gardens may turn to dumping their waste in public spaces if faced with leaving it in bins for two weeks where it “would begin to smell”.

Leader of the council, Andrew Baggott, has rubbished these fears and pledged the council is committed to collecting “stinky waste” weekly.

“We already get enough issues with fly-tipping in my area,” said Mr Smith, who represents Nethermayne.

“And if we end up with households with green waste putrefying for two weeks in a wheelie bin, in order to avoid the stink, I can see people just throwing their waste over communal greens.”

The independent group leader accused the Tories of breaking an election promise to "maintain weekly bin collections". 

But Mr Baggott says the party was always clear it had pledged to keep weekly food waste collections and not garden waste.

He said: “This plan has been in the works for ages and is not part of any election pledge.

“Government legislation is coming out as to how waste is going to be divided and we have to comply with the law.

“However, anything that is stinky waste, nappies, food, the sort of stuff you don’t want hanging around longer than necessary, will be collected weekly.

"That is the bottom line.”

As part of the council’s proposals, each household will receive a 23-litre outdoor caddy and a five-litre kitchen caddy for indoor use, and 50 kitchen caddy liners annually free of charge. 

The council will also run a fortnightly garden waste collection, collected via current green wheelie bins or garden waste sacks. 

Bosses are hoping to introduce the new collections in the autumn, with containers being delivered to all homes in advance.