BURY Council has said that one-off collections of brown bins are being organised to pick up people’s garden and food waste.

Bin collections had been disrupted due to the covid-19 pandemic, with restrictions being placed across the the country.

The collections are due to start this week and residents are being urged to sign up for email reminders on when to put their bins out. This can be done by visiting bury.gov.uk/bincollections.

Nearly 33,000 people have already signed up for email reminders for bin collections, with the brown-bin collections due to start this week.

All other bin collections are continuing as normal, including on Good Friday.

Councillor Alan Quinn, cabinet member for the environment, said: “Due to the coronavirus outbreak, waste collections have been severely disrupted, particularly brown bin collections.

“However, we are arranging a one-off collection of the brown bins, recognising that many people will have put waste in there before the restrictions came in. After this, they will not be collected until further notice, so that we can prioritise collecting the other bins.

"Until collections resume, please put food waste in your grey bin, and store your garden waste in a corner of your garden. Or you could look into setting up a compost bin which is a great way to turn kitchen and garden waste into a rich food for your garden.”

Cllr Quinn added that the collections are likely to not be on usual collection days and that they depended on whether staff are available on the days.

He said: “Our bin men are working tremendously hard, especially given the extra waste that is being generated by people being at home all day. Due to the need to reduce contact, we have reduced the number of crew members to two in each cab.

“Please bear with us at this difficult time and be assured that over the coming weeks we will be doing everything we can to maintain the service as best we can.”

For all information on Bury’s waste collections during the Covid-19 crisis, go to bury.gov.uk/bincollections-coronavirus.

More information about home composting is at getcomposting.com/profile/login.