Bury Council has been celebrating this week that in the last six months the amount of rubbish we are putting in our grey bins has reduced by 3,923 tonnes.

On the face of it, this is great news: less waste to landfill or incineration is VERY good for the environment; less rubbish in our grey bins means less charges the Council has to pay to dispose of the rubbish (the Council has to pay £308 a tonne to dispose of grey bin waste.)

Bury’s recycling rate is now 57.5% of waste. Interestingly this is significantly below Lib-Dem run Stockport who achieve the best in Greater Manchester with 61% recycling – but this is with FORTNIGHTLY bin collections AND a weekly food collection.

The figures for other bins are interesting:

Over the period October 2014 to May 2015 (compared to the same period in the previous year):
* Green bin waste (paper/cardboard) has increased by 454 tonnes
* Blue bin waste (metal tins, plastic bottles) is up by 466 tonnes
* Brown bin waste (food and garden) is up by 644 tonnes

`That’s TOTAL recycling bins increase of 1,564 tonnes
* Grey bin waste (non-recyclable) is down by 3,923 tonnes

So where is the missing 2,359 tonnes of waste that is no longer in grey bins but isn’t in the recycling bins??

A few possibilities:
* all of a sudden people in Bury are producing less waste – it would be great if we’re all composting or re-using, or somehow supermarkets and Amazon had stopped giving us unnecessary packaging, but we doubt it….

It would be really interesting to know who much extra waste is being taken to Household Waste Recycling Centres (the tip) that before. Waste taken here is not included in Bury’s recycling or waste figures (not that we have a tip in Prestwich any more…)

It would also be interesting to know what increase there has been in flytipping. Anecdotally we know that there are more complaints to us about flytipping – either serious large incidents, but also cases of things cluttering back alleys spare bits of land in residential areas.

We would be interested to know your views!

Rochdale Council Consults on Three Weekly Bins

Bury Council was the first Council in England to introduce three-weekly bin collections 18 months ago. Now next-door Rochdale are consulting on a three-weekly bin proposal. Interestingly their proposal is the same for Bury EXCEPT the collection of food waste will be WEEKLY, not fortnightly like Bury.

Residents may remember that Bury introduced the change without any consultation with the public.

The Manchester Evening News conducted an online poll of Rochdale residents who found that 83% of residents oppose the plan. More information here.

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