Ceredigion residents will be limited to three black bin bags per collection every three weeks from June.

Ceredigion County Council says the move is aimed at encouraging recycling and will save the council £25,000 a year.

From 23 June the council will only collect up to three “black bags” per 3 week collection cycle.

The council says: “The purpose of the change is to encourage residents to make full and proper use of the council’s recycling services, especially the food waste collection service.

“Similar restrictions for residual waste are already in place in the other 21 Welsh local authorities and have helped those councils to improve their recycling performance and reduce waste disposal costs.”

The restriction does not include Absorbent Hygiene Products (AHP) bags provided by the Council and there will be no limit to the amount of recyclable waste that can be put out for collection in clear bags, food waste bins or glass boxes.

Since the current waste collection service was introduced in 2019-20, the advice has been that residual waste bags should contain only non-recyclable waste.

The aim of this change is to encourage residents to recycle as much as they can.

Cllr Shelley Childs, Ceredigion Cabinet Member for Highways and Environmental Services said: “Ceredigion County Council’s recycling services are designed to make recycling easier, not harder.

“The residual waste restriction, which is already in place in all the other Welsh local authorities, aims to increase the ability of Ceredigion as a county to recycle as much waste as possible.

“This will help Ceredigion become a more sustainable county and increase our already excellent recycling performance even further. We are asking everyone who can recycle to recycle as much of their waste as possible and to recycle their food waste in the weekly collection service.”

Residents will also no longer be able to take unsorted waste to any of the council’s household waste sites.

Ceredigion council added: “This is not an outright ban on residual waste at the sites, but residents are required to sort anything for recycling before visiting a site, or to sort residual waste bags on arrival.

“Residents are also reminded that they will be asked for proof of residency (such as a driving license or utility bill) when using one of the county’s household waste sites.”

Cllr Childs added: “When the ‘no unsorted waste’ practices were introduced at the household waste site in Aberystwyth earlier this year, the amount of residual waste received at the site halved, which is great news for the environment. I would like to thank residents for respecting the changes at the household waste sites, and for helping to keep the earth’s natural resources in circulation, reducing the need, and the cost, of waste disposal”.

The council added: “Ceredigion has consistently been one of the highest performing recyclers in the United Kingdom. However, data suggests that around 50% of the contents of ‘black bags’ collected in Ceredigion could have been recycled. The largest single component was food waste (24%).”