Bolton council has thanked residents for their support with the rollout of slim grey bins across Bolton, which has already helped the council to avoid £1.4m of waste disposal costs.
Since June 2016, the council has been replacing all 240 litre grey bins with slim 140 litre grey bins across the borough. The council introduced this scheme to avoid £1.25m of waste disposal costs per year.
Residents have adapted well to the new bins and have already started recycling more and disposing of less grey bin waste.
Between April and December the council collected 33,310 tonnes of recyclable waste, an increase of 2956 tonnes on the same period last year.
The recycling rate for this period rose to almost 45 per cent, compared to 41 per cent for the same period in 2015.
The council also collected 34,246 tonnes of grey bin waste, a reduction of 4094 tonnes on the same time last year.
The amount of flytipping collected by the council between April and December 2016 has also decreased from the same period in 2015, with 85 tonnes less being collected.
All the old 240l bins which were collected in by the council were shredded, chipped and used in the manufacture of the new 140l bins.
Bolton Council’s Executive Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, Councillor Nick Peel, said: “We’d like to thank residents for all their hard work in recycling, which has helped us to avoid costs of over £1.4m so far.
“Residents have adapted well to the new slim bins, by recycling more and putting out less grey bin waste.
“This not only saves money, it also helps the environment, as more waste is recycled.
We will now be focusing our efforts on increasing recycling, especially by educating residents that tin foil and aerosols can be recycled.”
Tameside, Trafford, Stockport and Manchester have already introduced slim grey bins and other Greater Manchester councils have moved to three weekly collections.