“Level up your recycling” say staff at Wigan borough’s recycling centres

The teams at Kirkless, Slag Lane and Chanters Recycling Centres are able to get back to the business of maximising recycling by intercepting and splitting the bags residents bring in, as part of a drive to recycle as much as possible in the area.

But reintroducing the bag splitting initiative comes with its challenges for the team intent on ensuring as much is recycled as possible.

FCC Environment are calling on the public to help asking, in particular, that food waste is placed in your kerbside garden or food bin and not bags destined for the recycling centre.

FCC Environment contract manager Barry Elder (below)said: “Since the festive season came to an end, the team have been ‘talking rubbish’ as more and more of our food waste is finding its way into the bags being taken to the Recycling Centre.

“That is not only making it hard for the team to pull out recyclable materials, but in some cases, it is contaminating the recyclable materials making them unfit to be made into something new.

“We also spend a lot of time going through these bags and it can be an unpleasant task.”

This will make sure that the team’s can focus their energy on providing help and advice, and recycling as much as they can – which reduces landfill costs and is good for our environment.

Coun Paul Prescott, cabinet portfolio holder for environment at Wigan Council, said “We’re really pleased to see residents recycling more and recycling right, in line with the Deal, here in Wigan borough, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who is doing their bit.

“It’s brilliant that we have seen such an increase in our recycling, but we know we can always go further which helps to tackle the climate crisis and reduce costs.

“That’s why we are encouraging residents to take their recycling to the next level

“Recycling food and garden waste in the green bin is really important as it saves that waste from going to landfill and it has an important role to play in helping grow our future food.

“Crucially, recycling correctly using all three recycling bins will save space in your black bin. The black bin should be a last resort for items that cannot be recycled.

“And for everything else, we provide three recycling centres in the borough where the team really are dedicated to recycling as much of what comes in as possible.

“Helping them by sorting recyclable items before you set off makes it easier not just for them, but also saves you time unloading when you get to site.”

The company is also, reminding residents that it is vital that all electrical and battery-operated items that you no longer need are delivered to one of the three recycling centres within Wigan for responsible treatment and disposal.

FCC Environment’s area supervisor Tracy Roe said: “We would call upon the public to please think before putting any electrical or battery-operated items in their household waste bins and instead use the dedicated secure storage containers at your nearest recycling centre or your local electrical retailer for domestic type batteries.

“When it comes to battery operated items, dead batteries thrown away with other waste and recycling, are likely to be crushed or punctured once the waste is collected and processed.

“Some battery types, like lithium-ion (Li-ion) and nickel-metal Hydride (NiMH), can ignite or even explode when they are damaged.

“Once this happens, the batteries can quickly set fire to other materials present in the waste, like paper, leading to serious incidents that put lives at risk.”

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