How we broke the news…

The Wishaw Press first broke the story about the general waste bins being collected every three weeks back in March.

Shotts community councillors debated the proposals and feared that bins not being emptied for three weeks could lead to more fly tipping in the area.

Harry Morgan, from the council’s waste management service, said the move was to encourage more recycling across North Lanarkshire.

Speaking in March to members of the community council, Mr Morgan said:“Everything in the grey bin is costing us a fortune.

“Councils across the UK have three-weekly collections.

“We need to force rubbish out of the grey bin and into the blue bin.

“We get about one quarter to a third out of recycling material and we need to change that.”

A council spokesman said:“Details of the changes will be distributed to all households in the summer.

“If households use the recycling bins fully, we are confident the new service will offer sufficient capacity and it will contribute to achieving national targets for recycling.”

However, the proposed changes were immediately denied by council leader Jim Logue who insisted before the election that if Labour returned to power there would be no changes to the bin cycles.

Councillor Logue said:“There has never been a proposal to change waste management cycles and, as such, any suggestion that collections are due to change to three-weekly are incorrect.

“This is not happening, full stop. If re-elected, Labour will make sure bins are collected on the same cycles as they are at present.”