Published: Friday, 14th Sep 2018

Our waste management and recycling team has won a top national award.

The team was shortlisted from hundreds of submissions and scooped the ‘Service Team of the Year’ category at this year’s APSE awards – the premier awards for local government.

The awards, held last night (September 13), recognise and reward innovation which has resulted in improved levels of service to communities and people.

After a review by a panel of judges, made up of senior figures from the public sector, Bolton Council was presented with the award.

The team helped the authority to save more than £4 million in waste disposal costs following the roll-out of slim bins. The council replaced all 240 litre bins with 140 litre grey bins in 2016.

The scheme was introduced to encourage recycling, reduce grey bin waste collected and save £1.25 million a year in waste disposal costs – a figure which the council has significantly exceeded.

The borough’s recycling rate has also increased from 39 per cent to 47 per cent due to the successful implementation.

Executive Cabinet Member for Environmental Services, Cllr Nick Peel, said: ""This is a fantastic achievement and a well-deserved award for our team, who have worked so hard to achieve the savings and exceed our targets."

A big thanks must also go to our residents – their support and hard work in recycling and adapting to the changes has been a big part of helping us to save more than £4 million and increase our recycling rate."

“Our focus on behaviour change whilst implementing difficult operational changes was praised by the judges. The fact that the team ‘as a whole’ has been instrumental in making the waste and recycling changes such a success was also recognised.