Hold on, the green bags are coming

SHINFIELD residents have raised concerns that they have yet to receive their new recycling and blue rubbish bags: but the message is hang on.

In February, Wokingham Borough Council started the process of delivering the new green sacks to every home in the borough.

The delivery includes 80 blue general waste bags and about 100 food waste bags and the roll-out process is not due to be completed until the end of the month.

It had been hoped to take seven weeks.

Residents are able to purchase more blue bags ahead of the delivery of their new ones.

However, some Shinfield residents took to social media to say that they were still waiting for their sacks to be delivered.

Cllr Jim Frewin, independent councillor for Shinfield South, confirmed this is being looked at and different areas who haven’t received the bags will be “investigated”.

He added: “Another lot of bags are due to be delivered from Monday, April 5, but if anyone is desperate then please contact me.”

Assuring residents, Cllr Parry Batth, executive member for environment and leisure, said: “We have received requests for about

150 missed deliveries in Shinfield, out of a total of 3,685 households in the parish.

“All deliveries including those who were missed the first time round will receive their bags by Friday,

April 23.”

The bags have been introduced as a replacement for the black boxes.

Changes to the way in which paper is recycled means it now needs to be kept dry. It is hoped that with residents being able to keep their waste dry they can increase the recycling rate to 70%.

The waterproof recycling bags have a weight at the bottom to prevent them blowing away, although some residents have found that the recent stormy weather tested that concept.

They also have a five-year lifespan.

Residents are free to repurpose the black boxes, carry on using them for non-paper based recycling or have them collected later in the year. The council intends to recycle the black boxes in some form.