Dustbin police to sift through your rubbish

WHAT's in your bin? Workers will be find out, to improve recycling

WASTE workers are to root through household rubbish in Oldham to find out what’s being thrown away in a bid to boost recycling rates to 50 per cent.

Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority (GMWDA) is aiming for half of rubbish collected to be recycled by 2015.

And to help achieve it staff will check through a selection of bin bags to establish exactly what is being left in the rubbish and what is being recycled.

Bosses say the project will help them gain a better understanding of what is in the household waste bin and recycling containers. And they say it will help save Greater Manchester’s valuable resources — with a better environment benefiting everyone.

The project started early this year but the next phase begins on Monday and will last for four-weeks when around 900 households across Greater Manchester — including 100 in the Oldham wards of St James, Coldhurst, Alexandra and Failsworth — will have their bins sorted into 31 different material categories.

The authority says the latest phase will help them understand the changes that occur throughout the year, with people tending to throw away different things in the summer than they do in the winter.

It stresses that the information obtained will be confidential and will only be used to improve recycling rates. Although the recycling will be taken away for sorting it will be returned to the recycling stream for reprocessing.

Councillor Neil Swannick, chairman of GMWDA said: “Residents have done really well in increasing the amount recycled, but we know we can achieve even higher economic and environmental benefits. It is another step forward towards our aim of zero waste to landfill. Recycling makes sense, costing less than landfill and protecting our environment.”

Oldham has vastly improved its recycling rates from 15 per cent in 2006 to almost 40 per cent this year. But it’s still a long way behind the top green authority, South Oxfordshire, which recycles more than 70 per cent of residents’ rubbish.

Oldham’s rate equates to around 30,000 tonnes of waste a year, saving the council in the region of £2 million a year, mostly in landfill fees.

GMWDA provides waste disposal services for one million households in Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford, handling around 5 per cent of National Municipal waste.