Garden and food waste only for the brown bin, please

Bury Council is reminding residents that their brown bin is only to be used for loose garden waste and cooked and uncooked food waste. 

No plastic bags should be placed in the brown bin or any recycling bins.  In the case of food waste this can be bagged-up but only using the compostable liners provided by the council. 

The appeal comes after two loads of brown bin contents had to be rejected at Viridor’s composting facility because they contained a large amount of the wrong things.

One, an 11-tonne load, was heavily contaminated with items including a carpet, a car seat, mixed domestic waste and carrier bags. A second load, weighing 8.5 tonnes, contained black sacks, carpet and mixed domestic waste.

In both cases, the waste had to disposed of at a cost of £283 per tonne, rather than the £61 per tonne it would have cost to put it through the composting process and turn it into a useful product.

Councillor Tony Isherwood, cabinet member for environment, said: “Viridor convert our brown bin waste into ‘Revive’, a high quality compost, and therefore have stringent rules to prevent contamination. Material gets shredded as part of the composting process, and if contaminants such as plastic bags get into the compost they ruin the product. Disposing of these two contaminated loads has cost the council – and therefore taxpayers – more than £4,000, money which we can ill afford to waste and would be better spent on other public services.

“With spring upon us, many residents will be starting to tidy up their gardens. Could I ask everyone to please be careful about what you put in your brown bin? We want your organic garden waste, which means grass cuttings and hedge clippings, cut flowers and plants, leaves, bark and twigs, small branches and your kitchen food scraps. But not cooking oil, any type of packaging, plastic bags, soil, big logs, plant pots and the like. We will be checking brown bins on collection day and those containing the wrong stuff will not be emptied.”

For details of what to put in your different recycling bins, check the council website at www.bury.gov.uk/recycling or phone the information line on 0161 253 5555.

ENDS

Press release issued: 14 April 2014.