Belfast City Council plans to reduce bin size 20 August 2013 Last updated at 06:11 By Mark Simpson BBC News The size of the standard black wheelie-bin in Belfast could soon be reduced, to encourage people to recycle more rubbish. In order to meet EU targets, Belfast City Council needs to recycle more - so it's planning to introduce smaller black bins. Councillor Steven Corr said the idea was to phase in the new bins over the coming years. A final decision on the plan will be made by the council next month. "The bins that people will be getting will be streamlined, a slimmer build - they hold less, about 60 litres less than the rubbish that can be held in the normal black bin," Councillor Corr said. Belfast is producing too much unrecyclable waste as a city. It can't be sustained. He added:: "We need the city's recycling rate to be at least 50% by 2020, as required by EU legislation. If we fail to achieve that target, the council will face heavy fines and it's inevitable that those fines will have to be passed on to ratepayers in some way. As it stands currently we could recycle 70% of the waste we produce, but we're only recycling half of that.