THE county council is expected to spent up to £700,000 on buying new bins by the end of the financial year.

As part of its waste collection contract with Suez, Somerset Council bears the cost of providing new and replacement bins for kerbside collections – including black wheelie bins, recycling boxes and food waste caddies.

The council has set aside up to £950,000 within its capital programme for the 2025/26 financial year towards the purchase of new bins – of which it expects to spend a maximum of £700,000 in light of its ongoing financial pressures.

In a bid to keep costs down, the council will also be removing and reusing  around 3,500 “unsanctioned additional bins” from Somerset properties – the majority of which will be 180-litre grey refuse bins.

Large numbers of new bins have been provided to Somerset households over the last few years during the roll-out of the Recycle More initiative, which has seen refuse collections move from fortnightly to once every three weeks as more items are recycled at the kerbside.

For the current financial year (which ends in April 2026), the council estimates it will have to provide a maximum of 68,640 additional bins or other waste containers, to both replace damaged existing stock and account for new housing growth.

Of this, 17,500 will be grey or black refuse bins (the common ‘wheelie bins’), with a further 7,000 green bins for garden waste collections.

Chris Hall, the council’s executive director for community, place and economy, said that the current system with multiple waste receptacles would remain in force until at least 2030, when the current waste contract would come up for review.

Mr Hall added there would be “strict control over bin distribution to minimize unnecessary purchases” and thereby avoid further costs to taxpayers.