Reminder as city's bin collection routes set to change from today

All residents affected by the changes should have received information and stickers detailing their new collection days by the end of last week.

Councillor Tom Murray, executive member for environmental services, said: "We have sent letters out to all residents who will be affected, so if you have received any post from the council please read it carefully as it may contain very important information on your new bin collection days.

"It's really important that people make the effort to remember to put their bins out by 7am on the right days – that is the key to making our more efficient new routes work.

"We do appreciate that it will require residents to change their habits and there are bound to be teething problems, but bear with us and the new system will pay big dividends in making the service better and saving the city a considerable amount of money."

Residents can also search for their new bin collection days by entering their postcode into a search box on the Leeds City Council website.

The council has been working with staff and trade unions to agree the revised working practices and more efficient routes, which are based on a zone-style system. The crews have been helping to plan and test out the new routes.

In the past, crews could only collect from their specified route. However, from today, refuse collectors and drivers will work together in teams to ensure all households in a particular area or zone have their bins emptied that day. This means that if one crew is held up then other crews can help once they have completed the collections in their own zone.

The new system should ensure that reports of missed bins are dealt with more rapidly.

Householders will also benefit from the revisions as almost all black and green bins will be collected on the same day of the week.

The old system meant that some areas had these collected on differing days.

People living in multi-storey flats will not be affected.