Published on 22nd December 2016

A recycling operative emptying a green recycling box

New vehicles for Cheltenham’s waste and recycling collection provider Ubico Ltd will serve residents after summer 2017.

The council has now placed an order for new vehicles as its current waste and recycling vehicles are old and need replacing. This provided an opportunity to improve the service as a whole, partly facilitated by the new vehicle purchase.

To support this, a well-publicised waste and recycling consultation was held this autumn which saw more than 3,000 Cheltenham residents share their views, and the majority voted for 'option a – no change to the way your waste and recycling is collected'. Now, as part of implementation of the service improvements, new ‘Kerb-Sort’ vehicles have been purchased in preparation for the service launch in 2017.  

The Kerb-Sort vehicles are designed to maximise the range and volume of recycling materials which can be collected and promise to be streamlined, fuel-efficient and flexible.

There will be no change for residents to the frequency of recycling collections and the recycling boxes will stay the same, but we’ll be able to accept brown corrugated cardboard and mixed plastics (pots, tubs and trays). In addition, the council is also reviewing the opportunity to collect other smaller quantity items such as textiles and batteries.

For residents this also means continued weekly food waste collection, with fortnightly refuse and fortnightly chargeable garden waste.

In order to improve the collection routes some residents will experience a collection day change and a comprehensive communications campaign will be rolled out in preparation for the new service launch which will explain what can be recycled and notify  those households affected of a change in their collection day.

Councillor Chris Coleman, cabinet member for clean and green environment said: “This is great news and will improve the waste and recycling service for Cheltenham’s residents. Not only will the vehicles provide better facilities for the crews to do their job more efficiently, but also the opportunity for residents to recycle even more from the kerbside.”


For media enquiries please contact Laura Carter, communications officer 01242 264154 or email [email protected]

Notes: For more information on waste and recycling in Cheltenham, please visit our webpages: www.cheltenham.gov.uk/recycling