Ambitious plans to turn Bury into a ‘zero waste’ borough, boosting recycling and saving money, have been unveiled.

The proposals will be put to the next meeting of the council’s cabinet on Wednesday 16 July. If approved, a new waste collection system will be introduced in early October.

Under the Bury Zero Waste Strategy, there will be changes in the way household bins are collected. The number of recycling collections will increase, and the grey bins will be collected every three weeks rather than fortnightly.

The strategy has been developed to complement Greater Manchester’s Waste Management Strategy. Its key aims are to increase recycling to more than 60% by March 2016, reduce the treatment and disposal costs of waste, and support a reduction in carbon emissions. 

In respect of the kerbside collection service, the report recommends the following: 

• Grey bins (for waste that can’t be recycled) to be emptied less often than now - once every three weeks instead of two.  
• Green bins (for paper and cardboard) to be emptied more often - once every three weeks   instead of four;
  
• Blue bins (for plastic bottles, glass bottles and jars, food and drink cans, aerosol cans      and aluminium foil) to be emptied more often - once every three weeks instead of four;
• Brown bins (for garden waste and food waste) to be emptied once every two weeks - as they
       are now.

Under the new arrangements, larger families with extra waste they can’t recycle, e.g. disposable nappies, will be able to apply for an extra grey bin. Extra blue and green recycling bins can also be requested.  Any household with one of the smaller brown bins will be able to request to upsize to a larger one. 

Councillor Tony Isherwood, cabinet member for the environment, said: “Under the new proposals, most households will continue to have a collection of at least one type of waste every week. Grey bins will be emptied less often but, because the green and blue recycling bins will be collected more often,
there will be no change to the total weekly bin space available across all four bins. 

“Treatment and disposal of waste from grey bins costs us around £28,000 per day – that’s £10.2 million per year. And a lot of this waste could be recycled instead. 

“In the last three years Bury’s recycling rate has risen from 29.4% to 47.6% but, given that studies show it’s actually possible to recycle 75%, we know we can and must do more. Recycling just 10% more than we do now would save nearly £1 million per year: that’s a lot of money which would be better spent on protecting other local services. 

“If the system gets the go-ahead, residents can be assured that we’ll be doing everything we can to smooth the changes for everyone and helping to remove any barriers to recycling that residents may have.”

Council staff will work closely with communities to help them to recycle and they have already been meeting residents in town centres and at community events. Some area-based work is also under way in Ramsbottom and Whitefield and at Fernhill. 

For more information about recycling in Bury visit www.bury.gov.uk/recycling or phone 0161 253 5555