Birmingham City Council has your leftovers and potato peelings in its sights with its recycling drive set to move up a gear – and it may result in you getting a fourth bin.

Proposals to collect food waste are being considered in a new wide ranging review of refuse collection.

City bosses will this year draw up a 15-year waste strategy for the city – aiming to recycle at least 70 per cent of waste by 2030 and cut out the amount of rubbish sent to landfill altogether.

Currently less than 30 per cent is recycled.

And bosses believe that food waste – the largest single material not currently recycled on the doorstep – could provide the answer.

It could mean households get a fourth bin and, as recycling rises over the next few years.

But while the consultation does not directly mention cutting the weekly general waste collection, as other councils have done, or reducing the size of wheelie bins to limit waste – it does suggest ‘prioritising the collection of recycling’ over time.

Below: How many people pass this plastic bottle before someone finally picks it up?

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The strategy is being drawn up in readiness for the ending of the 25-year Tyseley Incinerator and council tip contracts with private operator Veolia in 2019.

It will set out what should be included in the next set of contracts – with energy capture technology and recycling set to play a major part.

Council bins chief Lisa Trickett said: “There is a huge challenge facing the city and a large proportion of that waste is food.l Much more could be done to recycle more of what is being left in the household rubbish wheelie bin.

“But despite this challenge, we also have a massive opportunity in front of us. Contrary to public perception, waste is actually a resource that, if managed effectively, not only has an environmental value. It has economic and social worth too.

“So, with our current waste disposal contract coming to an end in January 2019, the time has arrived for Birmingham to take a new approach.

“These are our resources and our challenges. What we need to do is identify how we get the maximum value from what is ironically called waste.”

Rubbish on city streets

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She added that while the service has endured major difficulties during the roll out of wheelie bins, charging for garden waste and issuing of new technology to monitor collections, it is stabilising.

And new services could be targeted at certain areas, with different collections for apartment blocks, community composting schemes where there are large gardens, or bigger recycling bins for areas where there is a high amount of paper.

A first attempt to consult over the strategy in April was withdrawn following complaints it was too complicated and anyone taking part would need a Phd in recycling to understand it.

* Cllr Trickett and expert officails will answer readers and citizens questions on the waste strategy via a video webchat at www.birmingham.gov.uk, between 6pm and 7pm on Tuesday, July 5. To register a question in advance email press.office@birmingham.gov.uk with the subject title “Waste Strategy Webchat."