Bury joins In The Loop with new colourful bins to boost recycling on-the-go

Bright, colourful and eye-catching bins are appearing in Burrs Country Park from today (1 Aug) 2023 as a new on-the-go recycling initiative is launched by Bury Council.

Bury #InTheLoop is a three-month trial which will make it as easy as possible for residents and visitors to recycle empty plastic bottles and cans and therefore improve recycling rates.

The initiative is a partnership between Bury Council and environmental charity Hubbub, made possible with funding from The Coca-Cola Foundation.

On-the-go waste continues to be a significant problem for authorities across the country. It is estimated that 9 in 10 of us recycle at home compared to 4 in 10 who recycle on-the-go. In 2019 an estimated eight billion drinks containersfailed to get recycled in the UK. That means they were either landfilled, incinerated or littered. At the same time, less than half of local authorities currently have on-street recycling systems.

This new initiative in Burrs County Park is part of #InTheLoop, the UK’s biggest collaborative approach to boost recycling on-the-go, which was first trialled in Leeds in 2018, followed by similar trials in Swansea, Edinburgh, Dublin, Wimbledon, Telford and Lambeth. Across the previous pilot projects, over 2.5 million plastic and glass bottles and cans were collected and recycled.

Burrs Country Park was chosen because of its popular location and links to the River Irwell, high visitor numbers and amenities including The Lamppost Café and The Brown Cow pub, plus the Caravan Club campsite and the East Lancashire Railway.

The 15 new multi-use litter bins have been installed as part of the latest investment in Bury’s 14 Green Flag parks. They have 120-litre containers – one for general waste, and one for cans, glass and plastic bottles, making it easier to collect these valuable materials which can then be made into something new instead of going to waste. A competition will be held with schools, giving children the chance to make art out of the bottles and cans collected in these bins, to be put on public display.

To keep contamination to a minimum, people are being urged to put items like coffee cups, dog waste and crisp packets in the general waste section of the bin and to think “if in doubt, leave it out”.

Councillor Alan Quinn, cabinet member for the environment, climate chance and operations, said: “Despite the years of austerity, we are still managing to invest in our Green Flag parks and these new bins are part of that.

“Burrs is a very popular park, home to many events, and I’m sure this move will be welcomed. It’s another opportunity for people to recycle, and I’d encourage them to do as much as they can to separate their bottles and cans from their general waste and help drive up our recycling rates. I’d also like to thank the Friends of Burrs Park group for all the work they do.”

Bury Council is one of four local authorities receiving grant funding from The Coca-Cola Foundation to introduce or improve their recycling points in areas that include waterways, such as coastline, riverways, canals, docks or wetlands. All four winning projects involve the roll out of bright, colourful and eye-catching bins, targeted messaging and local partnerships to encourage positive behaviour change, with a particular focus on reducing the level of rubbish reaching destinations downstream of the waterways where the campaigns are taking place.

Beau Zilesnick, Project Lead at Hubbub, said: “We’re really excited to bring #InTheLoop to Bury Through our eye-catching bins, we want to give residents, workers and visitors a better and easier opportunity to recycle while out and about. We’re urging everyone to use the new bins and help us ensure that as much valuable packaging is recycled as possible.”

Bury Council will be working with Hubbub to measure the impact and effectiveness of the new bins. The results and learnings from the trial will contribute to provide renewed insight to the #InTheLoop toolkit, an in-depth guide on how to roll out successful campaigns, to benefit other interested local authorities and organisations who can access the learnings and downloadable assets for free.