Full details of the great dustbin shake-up in Ipswich have been published – five weeks before the changes are implemented.

From April 1 bin collections will take place four days a week, instead of five, and completely new collection routes have been drawn up.

The town has been divided into four quarters, and each quarter will be covered on a single day. Homes in north west Ipswich will be collected on Tuesdays, in north east Ipswich on Wednesdays, in south east Ipswich on Thursdays, and in south west Ipswich on Fridays.

Black and blue bins will be collected on alternate weeks with brown bins collected with one of the others.

For full details of collection days on a street-by-street basis, visit the council’s dedicated website www.ipswich.gov.uk/binchanges

Collections will now start at 6am rather than 6.30am and householders are urged to leave their bins out the previous evening, even if they are not collected until later in the day during the first weeks.

The changes are aimed at saving the borough £160,000 a year in the first year and £180,000 a year in future years.

They will mean there is no need to change collection days when there is a bank holiday Monday. Good Friday this year (April 19) will be a normal working day. However there will be changes over Christmas/New Year.

Bin collection staff agreed to the changes at the end of last year after the borough offered a £1,000 one-off payment to all the staff.

Ipswich has almost 60,000 households. Every week the bin lorries travel 1,200 miles collecting bins from these households.

More than three million bins are collected each year, producing around 49,000 tonnes of waste! Over 20,000 tonnes of the waste collected is recycled or composted; that’s just over 40% of total waste collected.