New wheelie bins are set to begin arriving at people’s doorsteps this month – ahead of a much-debated change to rubbish collections.

Wokingham Borough Council has announced it will begin delivering the new black wheelie bins for general waste from Monday, May 20. However the council has said people should continue using their blue general waste bags until the changeover begins on August 12.

The council said that until then, people should aim to put out ‘no more than one blue bag per week, along with their usual green recycling bags and food waste bin'.

The coming changes to waste collection means Wokingham Borough Council will only collect general waste once a fortnight from August 12, while recycling will be collected every other week from the existing green recycling bags.

Food waste will still be collected every week from the existing food caddies.

The changes were hotly debated before councillors approved them last year.

The Conservative opposition group opposed the changes. They said residents wanted to keep weekly collections – and said that if they’d been elected to control the council last month they would have reversed the change.

But Liberal Democrat council leaders say the new scheme will improve recycling in the borough and save money. Councillor Stephen Conway said: “We're proud of how much we recycle already, but we need to do even better and these waste collection changes are key to this.”