Once again Croydon’s new wheelie bins were the hot topic at a full council meeting.

The cabinet member for clean, green, Croydon faced questions from members of the public and his council colleagues. But Cllr Stuart Collins came to the meeting with some good news.

He told Monday’s meeting that since new waste collections were introduced in the borough recycling has gone up to 45% – up 9% on the month before.

Despite the announcement Cllr Collins still faced questions on the cost of the new scheme and missed collections so far.

When asked how much the scheme cost Cllr Collins said while the bins cost £2.3 million – extra costs including publicity brought the total to around £3 million.

But he added that the scheme is expected to save the council £2.7 million in the first year and £5 million after that.

Some residents went without a bin collection for a month but Cllr Collins assured that these cases make up less than 1% of all collections.

“When you are introducing a new system and you are asking crews to work with different systems it’s a massive undertaking,” he said.  “There will be problems but we’ve been quite surprised because [missed collections] have been less than we expected.”

He said that so far there has been a 0.68 missed collection rate. One resident asked why all homes were issued the bigger wheelie bins – even if they did not think they needed them or found them difficult to move.

“By going to the larger system we future proof the scheme,” said Cllr Collins. “When you introduce something this large you have to have a uniformed system. We want you to try it first.”

The cabinet member added that assisted collections were available for people who are unable to move the bins from their gardens to the road.

This means Veolia would take bins from people’s front gardens and return them if they are eligible for the help.

Finally, one resident wanted to know what people should do if they are still waiting for their new wheelie bins to be delivered – a month on from when new collections were introduced.

Cllr Collins said these streets will be checked to see if they are suitable and if they are, bins should arrive this weekend.

He added that he has had emails from hundreds of residents saying they love the bins.