Residents have asked us to find out when more re-cycling will take place as many residents (5, 000 of them) as well as schools/youth and community centres still don’t all have a brown bin for composting garden and other such waste or full access to re-cycling activities.

Fellow St Mary’s Lib Dem Cllr Donal O’Hanlon and I were at the first meeting of the Scrutiny Commission for Environment, Economy and Transport last night and a report about re-cycling was tabled for our discussion/comment/scrutiny.

Apparently there is a review taking place to work out how to use the equipment (trucks) and staff teams more effectively in order to be able to extend re-cycling more efficiently. It’s hoped that more brown bins will be available by the end of 2008 and that the Council, can take recyclables from schools by incorporating them into new collection routes.

As to the green bags for paper/card/catalogues/directories - although it’s accepted that the green bags are not fully sufficient/fit for purpose and they blow around - alternatives explored at present have not turned up anything more viable - as yet. And if households need more than 2 green bags they can have them - just phone Bury council (253 5000) or email me and I’ll deliver them with your Focus.

I am shocked to find out that households are still only enabling the Council to collect 26% of possible material for re-cycling of what they produce - this is ridiculous! We all need to do more!

All the Greater Manchester Councils (except Wigan) all work together for re-cycling and waste disposal to develop a joined-up approach as well as keep costs in check. There are new re-cycling sorting plants coming on-line over the next 2-3 years which will also increase the quality of re-recyclable materials that the Greater Manchester Councils can jointly sell/pass to companies to then re-cycle. The more companies want different materials from household rubbish to re-cycle, the more that can then be collected from us householders.

An interesting development, is that a Bury charity called re-Build, refurbishes furniture for needy people. The Council now takes bulky items that are suitable over to them to mend/repair instead of putting it in landfill! This is what should be happening. Re-build also have volunteers who need to have work experience working for them, too - so its more than a furniture re-vamping process but a real community-based approach.

However, for may residents, the issue of re-cycling is blood-boiling stuff – as much of our rubbish, ie unsolicited letters and unnecessary packaging, we have to dispose of, we didn’t ask for in the first place!