Collecting bins every three weeks could confuse residents, Bexley councillors have warned.

The council’s £12million-a-year contract with Serco is set to end and councillors met last night (October 16) to discuss the borough’s future.

Serco could keep the contract, but councillors are also considering bringing the service in-house or re-tendering with a new company.

The frequency of collections could also change, with one option being moving to a 1-2-3 collection cycle.

This could mean a weekly collections of food waste, two-weekly collections of garden waste, fortnightly or three-weekly collections of recycling and fortnightly or three-weekly collections of residual waste for incineration.

Councillor Val Clarke said: “I get a little bit worried when it comes to all these dates, because it becomes very complicated.

“Every other week is easy to work out but every three weeks you have to sit there working it out and working out what kind of week it is this week.

“Fortunately we have a few months to think about these things.”

The number and size of bins will also be reviewed in the upcoming months, with councillors planning to establish a new sub-committee to review the plans.

Bexley has been one of the best borough’s in London for recycling for over a decade, and the council said new options being considered should increase that while it looks to make savings.

Cllr Nicola Taylor said: “A common conversation down my street is ‘is it a green bin week?’ – I think a three-week collection will be confusing and increase missed bin collections.

“The other thing we should think about is assisted bin collections. Bins can be heavy especially if filled with three weeks worth of waste.”

Moving to a three-week collection has lead to increased recycling in other parts of the country, councillors were told last night.

Residents are being asked to feed back to the council with their views on waste collections.

Another option that could be considered for 2021 is reducing the working week for waste crews, meaning less disruption at bank holidays.

Cllr Gareth Bacon said this would cause problems with rush hour traffic.

He said: “We have looked into this before. The lorries are big bulky lorries and the idea of having waste crews navigating traffic was not a route we wanted to go, so I would want to know what has changed.”

Serco had a “disappointing” summer following problems with recruiting and retaining staff, but the council has an option of extending its contract with the service for another five years.

“Not getting this right will have ramifications,” Cllr Stef Borella said,

“I’ve never had so many complaints as I did in May and June, that was appalling.

“Every week there were missed collections and that kind of service should not be tolerated.”

Councillors were told that renewing the contract with Serco is still a “serious consideration”.

The current collection strategy will not be changed for flats in the borough.