30/05/2026
Message sent on behalf of Mark Emms, Director of Operations, Babergh and Mid Suffolk District Councils
Dear Parish and Town Clerks,
I wanted to update you on the position in respect of the Better Recycling ahead of commencement of new waste collection services from Monday June 1st.
New Bins and Caddies
The main roll out of these is now complete. It has been a huge undertaking – so, realistically, we know there will be a few households which have been missed and we’ll be mopping these up as soon as possible. Our best estimate is this will be completed by around the end of next week. With the main rollout finished, we have additional capacity to address the ‘snagging’, and resources will remain in place until we are happy the job is done.
Through Kee Environmental, SERCO and our own staff we will have delivered getting on for 380,000 items (bins, caddies and liners) in Babergh and Mid Suffolk to around 94,000 homes, which given the supply chain issues we have faced will be a massive logistical achievement.
If residents contact you to say they have not had their new bin(s), please can you help us by giving out the following information;
If this have not been reported to the district council email [email protected] advising that you have not received your new bins/caddies, include the full address – if they have no internet access, they can call the council on 0300 1234 000 (option 4) (note we are experiencing extremely high call volumes at the moment)
Continue to use your existing bins until the new bins arrive e.g.
Babergh residents: if you have not yet received the new green-lidded bin, continue to put paper and card into your blue bin, along with glass, plastics, metal, and cartons.
Mid Suffolk residents: if you have not yet received the new blue-lidded bin, put glass, plastics, metal, and cartons, along with paper and card, into your green-lidded bin.
Food Waste (both): Until you receive your new food waste bin, continue to put food waste into the black refuse bin.
Put out bins for collection as per the new schedule Babergh / Mid Suffolk
Change over to new system once bins arrive (or as soon as you practically can thereafter)
The mixed materials in your blue recycling bin, and green-lidded paper and card bin, will still be recycled
Collections
The collection days and crews for the existing rounds are not changing, so we expect missed collections for recycling, paper and card, residual and garden waste to remain very low. Some misdirecting of recycling (containers and fibres) is anticipated by BIFFA (who operate the recycling facility at Gt. Blakenham), along with an initial clear out of glass bottles. This can be accommodated during the changeover and will still be recycled.
The food collection service is new, along with the separation of recycling now into 2 bins and residual (black bin) moving to 3 weekly. The new food service is crewed in the main by new SERCO staff. Please be patient, they will take some time to learn their rounds, especially those properties that are tucked away and require assisted collections. However, the weekly frequency will mean they soon get on top of this.
Crews have in cab devices and are supported from the SERCO office, but we are expecting some missed bins until they have fully learnt their rounds. Any missed bins should be reported at end of day as usual; we have additional capacity for the changeover period, but with the speed of the reporting process, collection is still likely to be within our 5 days policy (for food this will be next collection as it is weekly).
If residents contact you next week to say they have not had their food waste bin emptied, please can you help us by giving out the following information;
Report the missed food waste collection by ideally emailing the details and address to [email protected] – or by calling 0300 1234 000 (option 4). We will aim to return and empty the food waste bin as soon as possible
Where this is not possible, the crew will be made aware, so they should then not miss the food waste bin again the following week
Typically waste collection changes are usually assessed after the first 2 complete cycles of collection (6 weeks in our case) and we expect it to take this time frame to settle down to a new normal.
SERCO have a full roster of staff for next week as it stands and will have caught up on all collections from the last Monday bank holiday by this Saturday
