Recycling collections are set to move from fortnightly to once every three weeks as part of budget plans put forward by cash-strapped Tameside council.
Currently, bins for dry recycling are collected every two weeks in the borough, along with general waste, with brown bins containing food and garden waste picked up once a week.
However under the budget proposals for the next financial year, the town hall intends to move both blue and black bins to three-weekly collections.
Blue bins are for paper, cartons, cardboard and junk mail while black bins are for plastic bottles, glass bottles and jars, aluminium foil and cans and tins.
Officers say that under the existing collection rotas more than 12 million bins are collected by staff each year.
They have identified the recycling and contamination rates in waste as one of the ‘key issues’ for the operations and neighbourhoods department.
Budget documents state that one of the chief priorities for officers is to find ways to address the issue of waste contamination within Tameside, ‘specifically reducing rejected loads and increasing the mass balance performance’.
The report states that increasing recycling levels to reduce the waste levy will be achieved through targeted awareness campaigns.
Tameside currently has a recycling rate of 54pc, which officers say is above the UK average of 48pc.
Changing dry recycling collections to every three weeks will save £260k in the next financial year, and £530k a year beyond that.
There are also plans to transfer processing of street sweepings into the waste levy to save £200k next year, and achieve an ongoing saving of £250k a year beyond 2022.
It comes as part of the aim to save £1.8m from the operations and neighbourhoods department, around 20pc of the total savings the authority needs to make.
Director of finance Kathy Roe told a meeting of the executive cabinet: “There needs to be a relentless focus on delivering the £9m of savings for next year that’s been identified along with the early assessment and delivery of the £13.8m savings proposed for the following financial year.
“With a drive to keep identifying even more saving opportunities to address our ongoing financial challenge as we proceed.”
Councillor Oliver Ryan, who has the cabinet portfolio for finance said: “Raising council tax and cutting services is not something that people come into politics for.
“But unfortunately because of the way we’ve been left by the government to deal with our own demand and services in this way, without the support that we need we’re having to face that prospect.”
The 2021/22 budget will be formally voted on at a meeting of the full council on February 23.
