Work is being carried out to explore how Crawley Borough Council will collect recycling and waste from 2026.
Suggestions such as collecting general household rubbish once a fortnight rather than weekly are on the table, as are weekly food waste collections.
Authorities such as Crawley, which collect recycling and waste, are required to have food waste collections in place by March 31 2026.
And, with food making up some 44 per cent of the waste being thrown away by Crawley residents, such collections should see the amount of general waste fall.
During a meeting of the waste & recycling scrutiny panel, members were told that the council could ‘comfortably’ move to a fortnightly rubbish collection if it chose to do so.
Crawley and Arun are the only local councils in West Sussex which still have a weekly collection – and Arun is already working to move away from that.
A report to the meeting said: “As with all changes to major services, some residents will have concerns and may feel anxious about the possibility of alternate weekly residual waste collections.
“With over 85% of waste collection authorities having previously moved to alternate weekly residual waste collections, there is considerable industry knowledge and experience which can be drawn on.
“The council anticipates working with other districts and boroughs in West Sussex and with the county council to co-ordinate information and publicity to help to allay concerns residents may have.”
Partnership services manager Paul Baker told the meeting that collecting food waste from the borough’s 10,970 flats would be the ‘biggest challenge’.
The flats are spread through 989 blocks – 505 of them are managed by Crawley Homes so any changes needed when it came to wheelie bins and food collection caddies would be simple enough.
The rest, though, are controlled by around 135 managing agents and private landlords – some of whom do not live in this country.
An audit has already started to work out what facilities are available at the various blocks for the storage of bins etc.
Mr Baker said the current idea was for a two-stage roll-out of the food waste collections, starting with houses and then moving to flats.
