Call made for Right Bin, Right Stuff campaign to be rolled out across the borough

Councillor Jacqui Beswick - ‘Right Stuff. Right Bin’ campaign

Councillor Jacqui Beswick, the Council’s portfolio holder for Housing and Environment will tonight (Wednesday 15 March) ask the council to roll the Right Bin, Right Stuff campaign out across the whole borough.

The campaign, which was piloted in Newbold, Belfield and Wardleworth in September 2013, saw bin men inspect a bin’s contents before deciding whether to take it away or not. Bins containing the wrong type of recycling were then given a red tag and left unemptied.

The pilot scheme was hailed a success with the amount of ‘wrong stuff’ found in bins decreasing by more than 60%.

Recycling rates also raised by almost 50% in the targeted areas.

However, despite the positive results, the campaign also saw the number of bins reported uncollected double.

In 2013/2014, 136 properties reported their bin unemptied. This is compared to 62 reported in 2012/2013.

In a report due before councillors this evening, Councillor Beswick says: “Members will be aware of the success of this pilot campaign which aims to provide our residents with the information and little reminders on which waste belongs in which bin.

“The pilot went on to be a great success in terms of increasing recycling rates in the areas when it was carried out, reducing the number of rejected recycling loads from around 12 per month to non at present across the whole borough.

“This campaign also went on to achieve a national initiative award and due to this success, I will be asking the service to continue this campaign into the coming financial year and to roll it out across the whole borough.”

Martin Taylor, Head of Environmental Management at Rochdale Council, said: “The Right Stuff, Right Bin campaign was first piloted in September 2013 in partnership with Recycle for Greater Manchester. It aimed to increase the amount of items put in the right bin to increase the amount recycled across the borough.

“The Right Stuff, Right Bin approach is in place across the borough already as we continue to promote the messages of putting the right thing in the right bin as well as not emptying recycling bins which clearly contain items we cannot recycle. These bins are clearly labelled, by our collection crews, with a red tag explaining why they were not emptied and what the resident needs to do next.”

For information on what goes in what bin, visit:

www.rochdale.gov.uk/recycling