Newcastle Borough residents will be able to add plastic bags and cartons to their blue bins from next month as part of an expansion to the council's recycling service.

From April 2027 all waste collection authorities will be required to accept "flexible" plastics, such as loose bags, films and wrappers, but Newcastle Borough Council is set to start the service two years early.

Cabinet members agreed on Tuesday (March 18) to include flexible plastics and cartons in the council's existing kerbside recycling collection service. They heard that the changes would bring "minimal financial impact".

Council leader Simon Tagg said: "This council will be the first to do it in Staffordshire, just as we were the first to bring in food waste collection. I think it is really good we are expanding the types of plastic – it is something raised by people.

"Residents are really keen to recycle and will be happy about the improvements. It's partly down to their good practices – presenting high quality material with low levels of contamination – that we're able to make this positive move."

Information stickers are set to be added to blue bins to advise residents on what they can recycle from April. An updated list of accepted materials will also be available on the council's website and through social media.

Councillor David Hutchinson, cabinet member for sustainable environment, said: "Increasing what we collect is hugely beneficial in many ways.

"It will further boost recycling performance, place greater focus on using sustainable recycling methods to reprocess materials back into valuable commodities – shifting the emphasis away from the household rubbish bin – and contribute to lower carbon emissions and net zero objectives for the council, and wider borough, in our Sustainable Environment Strategy."

A report to Tuesday's cabinet meeting said: "Collecting additional plastics and cartons does not necessarily pose a problem operationally.

"The council's twin stream service, introduced in 2020, allows flexibility in accommodating additional materials as and when government legislation requires councils to collect them, and or markets become available for those materials to be effectively recycled.

"The precise effect on vehicle capacity is difficult to calculate at this stage, as the material is quite bulky, but squashes down relatively easily, and is light in terms of tonnage.

"It is possible vehicles could fill up more quickly, however the service is about to commence a new round of route optimisation work, which this additional material can be built into."

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