Shropshire Council has warned it may not be able to collect food waste weekly until 2039.
From this month waste collection authorities must provide weekly collections, but this has been delayed in Shropshire due to what the council described as a ‘complex' contract with its waste management supplier Veolia ES Shropshire.
A report to senior Shropshire councillors said the contract runs out in 13 years and to change the details ‘requires negotiation of existing contractual arrangements or the creation of alternative arrangement incurring cost to the council'.
The report noted the council was one of ‘a number of other local authorities' that were ‘also struggling' to provide weekly food waste collections.
Barriers include similarly complex contracting issues, lack of funding and time to mobilise collections, and geographic problems particularly among rural councils.
Shropshire is to consider applying to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs for an exemption from its regulatory food waste requirements ‘on the basis of rurality and contractual complexity'.
Shropshire Green Party councillor Duncan Kerr said he ‘would be very aghast that our residents have to wait 13 years for something other residents in the country are expecting and the Government has legislated for'.
