PLANS to introduce a three-weekly collection of black bin bags throughout Pembrokeshire look likely to go ahead, as the council cabinet have endorsed new recycling service proposals.

Cabinet gave their approval for a series of changes to refuse collection at their meeting on Monday, March 19.

Cllr Cris Tomos, cabinet member for the Environment and Welsh Language stressed that the new service was a shift away from waste collection towards recycling as much as possible to meet upcoming targets.

“Welsh Government are putting forward quite stringent recycling targets for 2019-20,” said the councillor, stressing that if these were not met PCC could be fined.

“At this time of tightening budgets we don’t want to spend our money on fines.”

Under the proposals, the current weekly collection of orange recycling bags would be replaced by a new weekly kerbside sort service.

This system would see residents having to sort their waste into a food waste caddy, a box for glass, a box for paper and card, and a re-usable sack for plastic and tins, and would save the council on the cost of sorting materials at an industrial plant.

As part of this move, more types of plastic and other waste would be collected as recycling, reducing the amount of waste in black bags.

Council Leader David Simpson raised concerns about the re-usable sack being blown away by the wind, but was assured it was weighted to prevent this.

Residents could also request a “trolley box”, a robust, stackable set of boxes if they preferred, but would have to pay an estimated cost of between £30 and £45 for these.

Households would be restricted to the amount of litter they could put out for collection, with PCC giving out council-identifiable bin bags in the place of black bags.

Each household would have 52 of these bags a year, but houses with more than five members could request an extra 17 bags for every two extra people living there.

A separate fortnightly collection for nappies and other absorbent hygiene products would be available on request, with a discrete back door collection service possible.

Cllr Bob Kilmister expressed concern about this collection being fortnightly, and said he would have preferred to see it as a weekly collection.

Cllr Cris Tomos said: “We have some research with other local authorities that the two-weekly AHP collections work.”

Another part of the proposals would see a team of six new council officers hired to give out information about the changed service.

They would then act as enforcement officers once members of the public had adopted the new system.

If waste were not presented properly, fixed penalty notices of £100 could be issued.

As part of the proposals, bulky household waste collection costs would be reduced from £40 to £20, in hopes of reducing fly tipping.

Cabinet also agreed to sign up to the Cortauld Commitment, a voluntary agreement where participants pledge to reduce food and drink waste by 20% by 2025.

Under the proposed scheme a report would be brought to the Policy and Pre-decision Scrutiny Committee after six months to see if any changes needed to be made.

The planned changes with next be discussed by full council for ratification.