Free kitchen compost bin liners are dropped by council

Free liners for food slop buckets in Wolverhampton are being scrapped by council bosses.

Wolverhampton City Council has decided that from August 1 it will no longer supply replacement rolls of biodegradable bags.

Instead the council says anyone who wants to recycle food waste will have to use newspaper, plastic carrier bags or buy nappy bags or biodegradable liners from supermarkets.

The move was condemned by the opposition Conservative group, which set up the waste recycling scheme before it lost control to Labour. The scheme was launched in January last year and every house got given two slop buckets – one for the kitchen and one to keep outside for the binmen.

The council wants people to recycle waste food which is then sent to a plant in Gnosall, Staffordshire, to be broken down into compost.

When the scheme was launched, each household was given two free starter rolls of liners but the council continued to supply replacements. But the supply has now run out and, as the council has to make £44 million of savings over the next five years it says it cannot afford to give out more.