Blue bag charging scheme to come up for discussion next week

County councillors will be looking at a plan to replace worn-out blue cardboard recycling bags free of charge at a meeting next Thursday.  

People across the county have been complaining about disintegrating blue bags for months.

While Denbighshire, which is responsible for recycling, says it is aware of the problem and is looking at ways of addressing it, it continues to charge £12.50 for a new bag.

This has led to a surge of complaints, with hundreds of users signing an online petition demanding a free replacement.

The council's powerful community scrutiny committee is due to discuss a review of waste and recycling container charges on September 3, including those for blue bags.

And among the proposals they will consider are implementing a free customer exchange process at council household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) for blue bags and orange food caddies only but retaining charges for all items if customers require them to be delivered to their door.

Charging for waste containers in Denbighshire has been in place since 2019. The current policy of charging for waste and recycling containers was agreed in September 2023 prior to the formal roll-out of the new waste model in June 2024. 

This was reviewed in late 2025 which led to a decision for the relaxation of the charging policy to allow for those in receipt of School Essentials Grant or Pension Credits to receive one recycling container replacement free of charge per calendar year.

In May, councillors asked for a review of the current arrangements regarding the provision of waste and recycling containers and for options for alternative methods of providing these.

A full review of the arrangements and subsequent financial costs regarding different options ranging from improving the current system to introducing universal free provision has now taken place, and further details on this can be found in the papers for the community scrutiny committee online here. 

Next week members of the committee will discuss and make recommendations on a proposed policy revision which includes

• Implementing a free customer exchange process at our HWRCs for blue bags and food caddies only
• Retaining charges for all items if customers require items to be delivered to their door
• Expanding the free single item per year for any recycling container to those on the Council Tax Reduction Scheme (CTRS) - the Trolibox component black boxes are each considered a single item.

However, the online report says that for technical reasons the free exchange could only operate at the Rhyl, Denbigh and Ruthin recycling centres leaving no provision for the southern more rural areas such as Llangollen. The report points out there is believed to be no disposal storage at libraries or One Stop Shops. 

But it adds that enquiries are being made about whether this sort of exchange process can be accommodated by the private company operating Plas Madoc tip on behalf of Wrexham Council to assist more southerly residents. 

* A second paper will also be presented to the committee for discussion about the performance of the Waste and Recycling Service, which can also be found online.