Bury Bin's Debate over 'Zero Waste'

AT the next full council meeting of Bury Council on September 10th, the issue of 'zero waste' and the planned reduction of collections of grey bins from fortnightly to every three weeks from this coming October will now be debated.  This was forced upon the Bury Labour Council owing to the 3,318-signature petition opposing the switch collected by the Radcliffe lad Daniel Barkess.  This was far more than the 2,500 signatures needed to trigger a debate.

The Bury Branch of Unite that represents most of the Bury bin men has questioned the bin collection changes as wrongheaded, believing that it will lead to increasing amounts of 'side-waste' beside over filled bins, presenting potential safety issues for operatives.  The local Green Party has suggested that the non-recyclable rubbish is largely down to the creation of extra packaging by supermarkets, and that it 'is Green Party policy to set strict targets for supermarkets and food processors to reduce all food packaging and to phase out ... packaging that can't be composted or recycled'.

It would seem that local councils like Bury are seemingly afraid to take on the supermarkets.  The Green Party joint co-ordinator, John Southworth, argued in a letter in the Bury Times (24th, July 2014):
'Making supermarkets pay for the cost of recycling their unwanted plastic tubs is the only way they will change their ways.'

It would seem that the current problems with waste and the difficulties of recycling some rubbish are largely the responsibility of the era of the supermarket culture in which we now live.