Ernie Clark. Hilperton Division, Wiltshire Council.

The council is to tender for waste collection and disposal services.

All waste and recycling collections in Wiltshire could be delivered by a single contractor from 2016 after council leaders decided to invite tenders for delivery of the service.

The Cabinet was asked to consider a report on how to deliver the waste collection and management service across Wiltshire in the future, while ensuring waste sent to landfill is minimised.

The household waste, garden waste and plastic bottle and cardboard collections are currently delivered by the council in east, north and south Wiltshire, and FCC Environment in west Wiltshire. The contract with FCC runs until 2014 with an option to extend it, a decision on whether to extend this contract until 2016 will be made by Cabinet on 24 September 2013.

Black box recycling collections are currently delivered by Hills Waste Solutions and that contract runs until 31 July 2016.

Toby Sturgis, cabinet member for waste management services, said: 'Now we have the same services countywide, the expiry of these contracts gives us an opportunity to deliver those services in a more cost effective way. It is vitally important to ensure we are able to continue to deliver a high quality waste collection service to residents across Wiltshire.'

The tendering process will begin in August with the successful contractor being announced in summer 2014. The tender will set out how the waste collections service is to be delivered and what materials are to be collected. The collection of mixed plastic packaging will be included, and therefore will be collected from residents at the kerbside from 2016.

Waste and recycling collection containers which residents currently use will be used by the new collection contractor wherever possible.

Cabinet also agreed to invite tenders for waste disposal. Suppliers will be asked to tender for up to three contracts, one for the supply of landfill capacity or landfill diversion capacity for residual waste, a second for garden waste composting and a third for operating recycling facilities. A single, integrated contract could be awarded should one contractor submit a suitable tender for all three services, and the collection service. These services are currently supplied by Hills Waste Solutions under a contract which is due to end on 31 July 2016.

Considerable progress has been made towards a target of achieving 50% recycling by 2014. Contracts awarded for recycling and the diversion of waste from landfill will help the council to reduce the waste sent to landfill to less than 25%.