A final decision on whether the weekly black bin collection would be changed or not is about to be made this Wednesday, Sheffield City Council’s Cabinet has announced.

Under the new proposal bin collection will be collected fortnightly and the green waste collection will be cancelled.

The original plan was announced last month as a result of government’s tough financial cuts. It is said that the council will have £170m less to spend on services by 2015 to 2016 and the savings target for the waste management service is a around £7m over the next two years.

'We have significant money to save…by proposing to change the waste collection service, we believe we can still offer a good service' said Julie Dore, the council leader.

According to the statistics from the council the amount of residual waste collected from Sheffield households has been declining since 2005. Additionally, 58% of residents who responded to the survey stated that their black bins were half full or less each week.

The council made efforts to save the weekly bin collection earlier last year. In November, councilor Leigh Bramall wrote to the government to ask for funds and urged that weekly bin collection should be maintained for the next five years. But the government responded that there would not be enough money.

'Let’s be honest - the cuts have to hit somewhere' said Julie Dore.

Over half of Councils in the UK – 195 of 348 - now operate AWC (Alternative Weekly Collection) and Sheffield is currently the only local authority in South Yorkshire not to operate AWC.