Waste bosses reviewing whether to reopen tips

Waste bosses are reviewing whether to reopen the region’s tips more than three weeks after they were shut over concerns about social distancing.

Wigan council – which as a unitary local authority has control over its own waste disposal – has today (17 April) announced it will open its three recycling centres to the public.

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), which runs 20 recycling centres across the other nine boroughs, have not yet followed suit.

However officials say they are ‘regularly’ reviewing the situation after making the decision to close all centres on March 24.

A spokesperson for the combined authority told the Local Democracy Reporting Service: “All 20 of our recycling centres are currently closed.

“GMCA are reviewing the options with the nine council leaders and our contractor SUEZ, in line with guidance from DEFRA.

“We are also in contact with our neighbouring authorities in Merseyside, Cheshire, Lancashire and Derbyshire, whose recycling centres all remain closed at this current time.”

It comes after a number of councils, including Rochdale, Tameside, Wigan and Salford, reported a spike in the amount of flytipping their staff were having to deal with since lockdown began.

Pictures revealed overflowing bin bags, sodden duvets, mattresses, broken furniture, tyres and even toilet roll dumped at beauty spots, beside the road and by people’s homes.

In Wigan, residents have been wartned they must observe social distancing, and not all rush to get rid of rubbish at once in order to reduce queuing times.

And people could be asked to leave and return at a later time by council traffic officers if the queues become too long.

Only single occupancy vehicles will be allowed entry – any commercial vehicles of any type or vehicle trailers will be refused.

The GMCA said that over the weekend before lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Boris Johnson, more than 46,000 people visited its 20 recycling centres.

This made it ‘extremely difficult to follow the government advice on social distancing’, and the priority was to make sure staff are safe and well, bosses said.

The advice currently for residents in Rochdale, Oldham, Stockport, Salford, Trafford, Manchester, Bury, Bolton and Tameside is for people to hold on to bulky waste, such as furniture, wood and metals, and garden waste, until sites reopen.

No waste should be left outside recycling centres as this is classed as flytipping, and is a criminal offence for which people will be prosecuted.

Charlotte Green, Local Democracy Reporting Service