Bury Council has announced that it could reduce household residual waste collections from every two to every three weeks from October 2014, if proposed plans are accepted at a cabinet meeting next week (16 July).

The plans form part of the ‘Bury Zero Waste Strategy’, which the council hopes will boost its recycling rate from its current level of around 47 per cent, to ‘more than 60 per cent’ by March 2016, while reducing waste treatment and disposal costs and cutting carbon emissions.

Collection details

While the number of residual waste collections are planned to reduce to every three weeks, the strategy will see an increase in the number of recycling collections.

According to the council, the strategy will adjust the following kerbside collections:

• Grey bins (for residual waste) are to be collected once every three weeks (rather than fortnightly); and
• Green bins (for paper and cardboard) and blue bins (for plastic bottles, glass bottles and jars, food and drink cans) are to be collected once every three weeks (opposed to monthly).

Brown bins (for garden waste and food waste) will experience no change and be collected every two weeks.

However, Bury Council has said that ‘larger families’ will be able to apply for an extra residual waste bin in order to store any excess non-recyclable waste, while any households that currently have smaller brown bins will be able to request an upgrade to a larger one.

If the plans are approved at the next cabinet meeting (16 July), the council anticipates that the new waste system would be in place ‘by early October’, making it the first council in England to introduce three-weekly waste collections. (Scotland’s Falkirk Council started three-weekly collections in April while Gwyndedd Council in Wales will be implementing a similar collection service in October.)

Potential to save 'nearly £1 million' per year

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.”

Isherwood continued: “In the last three years Bury’s recycling rate has risen from 29.4 per cent to 47.6 per cent but, given that studies show it’s actually possible to recycle 75 per cent, we know we can and must do more. Recycling just 10 per cent 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.”

Resident reaction

Residents in the borough have, however, raised concerns about fly-tipping, recycling limitations and reduced space at the prospect of the new scheme.

Writing a comment on the council’s website, ‘Damian’ said: “If you can't accept the majority of plastic waste, such as food trays, films and pots, because the market rate for recycling these products isn't as attractive as the rate for bottles and cans, you really need to stick to fortnightly collections of grey bins.

“The other major area of concern for those with young children would be leaving disposable nappies to fester for three weeks in a bin, particularly in summer. Maybe you should consider a separate collection for absorbent hygiene products as well.

“Finally, have you factored the additional cost of clearing up fly-tipping as a result of three week collections in to your costs saving model?”

The news comes as Zero Waste Scotland (ZWS) release a report confirming that fewer residual waste collections do not pose increased health risks to householders.

Read more about reduced frequency waste collection in Falkirk or Gwynedd.