The changes to waste collection services for households in North Herts are officially being rolled out from today.

New contractor Urbaser has started its new contract for 280,000 residents – the begining of a seven year joint contract between North Herts District Council and East Herts Council.

Residents can expect to see Urbaser branded refuse vehicles and staff wearing Urbaser branded uniforms, carrying out their street cleansing, waste and recycling bin collections.

Urbaser will also deliver a number of service improvements for residents, including the use of vehicles with the latest in-cab technology.

This technology will enable crews to deliver a more streamlined service to residents, ensuring more efficient routes are taken when collecting waste and enabling crews to respond quickly to issues reported by residents

NHDC’s executive member for waste and recycling Councillor Michael Weeks said: “We are delighted to be working with Urbaser to deliver this joint waste and recycling contract.

“North Herts residents can expect to see improvements to their service, including the introduction of weekly food waste collections and kerbside battery collections. Also being introduced is an opt-in garden waste service for North Herts residents that choose to sign-up.”

Urbaser is the third largest environmental services provider in Europe, providing high profile waste treatment, waste and recycling collection and street cleansing. The company already manage contracts for a number of other local authorities up and down the country.

Javier Peiro, managing director at Urbaser Ltd said: “We are delighted to be working with North Herts and East Herts District Councils, and we are committed to providing value for money and excellent service levels.

“A new state-of-the art fleet is being installed to facilitate service improvements and we plan to improve the efficiency of routes in the future.

“Although this may involve changing some residents’ collection days later in the year, we are committed to maintaining the frequency of collections and we will give plenty of notice about any planned changes.”

For more information on waste and recycling at in North Herts go to north-herts.gov.uk/home/waste-and-recycling.