Cornwall Council says it needs an extra £62 million of taxpayers’ money to put facilities in place for the planned rubbish and recycling collection service.

The council is currently in the middle of appointing a new contractor to collect recycling and food waste weekly and black bag waste fortnightly.

At a meeting of full council on Tuesday councillors will be asked to back increasing the council’s capital programme by £62m to pay for facilities including a new recycling processing plant.

Full details of how the £62m will be used have not been made public, with the council saying that the figures are commercially sensitive.

The new waste and recycling contract is set to start in April 2020 and will run for eight years, with an option to extend by another two years. However, the new services are not expected to start until 2021 at the earliest.

In a bid to increase the amount of waste recycled in Cornwall the council is looking to change the service so that recycling is collected weekly and black bag waste is collected fortnightly.

At present recycling is fortnightly and black bag waste is weekly.

In addition the new service will also include a new food waste collection service which will operate weekly alongside the recycling collection.

Householders will also be issued with containers for their food waste and wheelie bins for black bags. Only bags in the bins will be collected.

Properties which cannot store wheelie bins are expected to be offered seagull-proof sacks to store their black bag waste. Containers for recycling will remain as they are now.

While details of the breakdown of the £62m have not been made available, a report to councillors does indicate that it will be used to pay for vehicles, containers, new recycling facilities and processing points.

It states: “The key estimated financial impacts relating to this contract are for the changes to the recycling delivery points, the processing of food waste, and the changes in volumes of waste being processed for recycling and by the Cornwall Energy Recovery Centre (CERC). The site changes will include alterations to the existing material recycling delivery points at Bodmin and Pool, and the transfer stations at Launceston and St Erth. It is clear that a new or additional material recycling facility will be needed in the future to deal with population growth and the expected increase in materials as recycling participation increases. It may also be more efficient to fast track a new facility if that creates revenue efficiencies and that is being explored with bidders.”

It adds: “Through the procurement process officers have explored options regarding the funding of the capital financing for the vehicles and containment required as part of this contract.”

The report states that council officers believe it would be better for the council to provide the finance for the required facilities rather than asking the winning bidder of the contract.

Cornwall Council will meet on Tuesday (September 10) to decide whether to increase the council’s capital programme by £62m.