Six months in, Mid Sussex recycling is up from 45% to 61% and residual waste down 26.6%. But 1,108 households reported problems. Scrutiny meets Wednesday.
Mid Sussex households are now recycling 61% of their waste, up from 45% a year earlier, and putting out 26.6% less in the black bin.
Those are the headline findings of the council’s own six-month review of the 1-2-3 waste and recycling service, published ahead of a scrutiny meeting on Wednesday evening. The same report records that 1,108 households contacted the council about problems with the new service, generating more than 3,000 separate contacts.
The 14-page report goes to the Scrutiny Committee for People and Communities at 7pm on Wednesday 2 September in the Council Chamber at Oaklands, Oaklands Road, Haywards Heath. Members are asked only to note it and to decide whether they want further updates.
What the figures say
The 1-2-3 model started in November 2025: weekly food waste, fortnightly recycling, three-weekly residual waste. The report describes it as the biggest change to household waste collection in Mid Sussex for nearly 20 years.
Its reported position after six months:
| Measure | Reported position |
|---|---|
| Collections completed since launch | 3,391,638 |
| Collections completed on schedule | 99.58% |
| Recycling rate | 61%, up from 45% |
| Residual waste | down 26.6% |
| Food waste collected | 3,083 tonnes |
| Dry recycling contamination | 4.07%, down from 5.86% |
| Assisted collections | 1,422 households, up from 1,092 |
| App downloads | around 17,000 |
Adding weekly food waste roughly doubled the work. The service now makes about 7.5 million collections a year against 4.3 million before, an increase of around 73%. Per household, the appendix puts scheduled collections at 122 a year, up from 78.
One figure the report does not explain
The recycling comparison is labelled oddly. The report gives the 61% as “Quarter 1 2025/26”, measured against 45% “for the same period in 2024/25”.
Quarter 1 of 2025/26 is April to June 2025. The 1-2-3 service did not start until November 2025. The report offers no note reconciling the two, and repeats the same label three times. The improvement is presumably measured on the first full quarter after the change, April to June 2026, but the document as published does not say so.
The report is also inconsistent about how many households it serves, giving approximately 70,500 in one place and about 72,000 in three others.
What went wrong, in the council’s own words
The report does not present a clean run. It records that the first month produced over half a million collections at a success rate of around 96%. On those figures, roughly 20,000 collections were not completed on schedule in month one alone.
Applying the reported 99.58% on-schedule rate to the 3,391,638 collections made since launch gives about 14,000 that were not. The council reports the 99.58% for the six months to April 2026, so the two numbers cover slightly different periods.
The complaint themes it names are:
- container capacity
- missed or repeat missed collections
- collection arrangements at communal properties
- breaking food waste containers
The 1,108 households that reported problems are about 1.5% of those served. The report notes many of them contacted the council through several channels at once, which made responses harder to coordinate and track.
Three risks are still open on the council’s own risk table: repeat missed collections, missed assisted collections and communal properties. On flats in particular, the report concedes that “there remain some developments where both residents and the Council have experienced difficulty obtaining timely engagement from managing agents”.
Where bin stores were the problem, the council says it reconfigured them, naming Eastbridge Avenue in Burgess Hill and Burchetts Close in Haywards Heath as examples.
A new depot for East Grinstead
The service needed more depot space than the council had. Vehicles have been stored on an interim basis at the Oaklands campus in Haywards Heath since the contract started.
Imberhorne Lane in East Grinstead was identified as the only suitable site the council owns. Designs are being finalised and a planning application prepared, with the aim of a fully operational site by autumn 2027. The council says a northern depot will cut dead mileage and shorten travel time to rounds.
The money
The implementation project came in about £217,000 under its approved £2.4 million budget, and the report says 37 full-time equivalent jobs were created or supported across the council and its contractor.
Mid Sussex chose 1-2-3 while the rest of West Sussex went to 1-2-2, which keeps a fortnightly black bin. Citing WRAP research, the report puts the saving from the lower frequency at £10 to £15 per household a year, which it converts to a possible £0.7m to £1.1m a year for a district of this size. That is a modelled national figure, not a measured Mid Sussex saving.
Food waste collected here goes to the upgraded Brookhurst Wood facility at Horsham, where it is processed by anaerobic digestion into energy and bio-fertiliser.
Mid Sussex was the first council in West Sussex to run district-wide food waste collections. The report lists Horsham and Chichester following in March 2026 and Arun in April 2026, with Crawley announcing an autumn 2026 launch and Adur and Worthing planning to start this month.
What it means for you
- Nothing changes on your collection day. The report is a review, not a proposal. Your three-weekly black bin, fortnightly recycling and weekly food waste stay as they are. Our bin collection days page has the current rules.
- If your collection is repeatedly missed, say so through one channel and keep the reference. The council’s own analysis found residents using several routes at once made cases harder to track, and it has changed its triage and escalation process as a result.
- If you cannot get your bins out, assisted collection is the route. The number of households on it rose from 1,092 in October 2025 to 1,422 in March 2026, and the council lists further improvements to the process as a next step.
- If you live in a flat and the bin store is the problem, it is the managing agent the council needs to reach. The report is explicit that delays in getting agents to engage are holding up site-specific fixes.
- You can attend on Wednesday. The meeting is at 7pm on 2 September in the Council Chamber at Oaklands, Haywards Heath RH16 1SS. The agenda also carries the committee’s work programme and a form residents can use to suggest topics for scrutiny.
Sources
- Mid Sussex District Council, Six-Month Review of the 1-2-3 Waste and Recycling Service, report to Scrutiny Committee for People and Communities, 2 September 2026.
- Mid Sussex District Council, Agenda, Scrutiny Committee People and Communities, 2 September 2026, read 1 September 2026.
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