EAST Lothian residents will have to separate recycling into four different categories from August under new waste collection plans which will also see recycling collected weekly.

Currently, households in East Lothian have green and blue recycling boxes which are collected once a fortnight, with plastic, glass and cans sorted into the green box; and paper, card and cardboard into the blue box.

However, from August, residents will see their collections increase in frequency to once every week, but will be tasked with sorting their recycling into four piles rather than two.

The four separate streams are: plastics, cans and cartons; glass bottles and jars; paper and card; and cardboard.

Paper and card will continue to be collected in the existing blue boxes, with cardboard to either be sorted into a separate blue box or flattened and presented beside the boxes or in another cardboard box.

Glass bottles and jars will continue to be collected in the existing green box, although these will be replaced with new black boxes in the future.

Plastics, cans and cartons will be collected in a new container, which East Lothian Council describes as a “sealable, weighted, reusable bag”.

An East Lothian Council spokeswoman said: “The bag capacity is larger than the existing green boxes, can be self-sealed – so no need to attach a cover – and the bags are weighted to help prevent these lighter materials blowing away.”

The change will also coincide with the rollout of new collection vehicles which will pick up recycling and food waste at the same time.

The council spokeswoman explained the reasons behind the changes.

She said: “In 2016, East Lothian Council became signatories to the Scottish Government’s Household Waste Charter, which aims to have all councils in Scotland collecting glass separate from plastic and cans, and cardboard and paper separate to the other materials.

“As part of our commitment to both the charter and to tackling the climate emergency, we are changing our recycling services to a charter-aligned collection model that delivers best value through the return of high-quality resources to the commodities market, while at the same time reducing the carbon impact of our waste and recycling services.

“From August, the collections will be carried out using specially designed resource recovery vehicles that can collect all the different materials and the food waste at the same time every week, reducing the number of times we have to visit each street by a third every year.”

She added that the move to weekly collections “should mean that many residents will store and present fewer containers than they currently do with the fortnightly service”.

The planned changes have been revealed after a multi-million-pound contract was signed to see a new company collect East Lothian’s recycling and food waste.

FCC Environment’s contract with East Lothian Council began on May 1 and will run until March 2029.

East Lothian Courier: A new contract to collect East Lothian's recycling and food waste has been signed. From left: Councillor Norman Hampshire, East Lothian Council’s environment spokesperson, Steve Longdon, operations director, FCC Environment, Mark Barnfield,

A new contract to collect East Lothian’s recycling and food waste has been signed. From left: Councillor Norman Hampshire, East Lothian Council’s environment spokesperson; Steve Longdon, operations director, FCC Environment; Mark Barnfield, head of municipal collections and streetscene; Tom Reid, head of infrastructure at East Lothian Council; and Bob Martin, contract manager, FCC Environment

The contract, worth up to £22.5 million, was previously held by Biffa.

Under the contract, FCC Environment will collect recycling and food waste from 54,000 properties.

Tom Reid, head of infrastructure for East Lothian Council, said: “Big improvements are coming to our recycling services over the next few years as our population grows.”