The council has used a 300,000 Defra grant to purchase two new kerbsider vehicles and 40,000 blue-and-yellow boxes for households to deposit cans, glass bottles and jars and plastic bottles each fortnight.
The service will be available to about 36,000 out of the districts 46,400 homes, the council said, but will not be provided for residents in Skelmersdale since there are existing recycling schemes there.
Announcing the new service, the council's environment portfolio holder, Cllr John Baldock said: “Recent public consultation confirmed that the people of West Lancashire are concerned about their environment and want to be able to recycle their waste.
“This initiative shows that we are committed to providing even more opportunities for residents to help preserve the environment.”
The council already collects green garden waste from about 10,000 homes in the Rufford, Aughton, Banks, Tarleton and Hesketh Bank areas each fortnight, providing residents with wheeled bins. Fortnightly blue bag collections for paper were extended and re-launched for 38,000 homes in 2002, with a special mobile service for parts of Skelmersdale that were unsuitable for the collection service.
The council recycled about 8.5% of its household waste in 2002/03, and said it is “well on the way” to achieving a 27% target rate by 2005/06.
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