New 'smart' bins that should hold eight times as much waste as traditional bins are being installed in Manchester this week as the council tries to tackle rubbish in Manchester city centre .
The council is spending £250,000 on the 51 bins which will be brought in to rubbish hotspots - including Piccadilly Gardens , Albert Square , St Peter's Square and London Road.
The town hall hopes that it will mean their street cleaning teams can spend more time on other tasks.
The solar-powered equipment, which will alert teams when they need to be emptied, are being introduced from today.
Currently the standard litter bins in busy areas - which also include Cross Street, St Ann's Square , Exchange Square and Market Street - have to be emptied up to eight times a day.
But it's hoped that the technology used in the new 'BigBelly bins' will help to reduce this. The closed design should also prevent the bin from overflowing into the street, the council has said.
A 2018 trial of the technology found a 90 per cent reduction in the amount of time staff had to spend checking and emptying bins.
Executive member for neighbourhoods, Councillor Rabnawaz Akbar, said: "This investment will improve the cleanliness of our city centre and the efficiency of our waste collection service.
"The new BigBelly bins will provide people who work, live in and visit the city centre with much increased capacity to dispose of their litter hygienically - and thanks to smart technology, our team will be alerted whenever a bin needs emptying, helping us to get to it before it overflows.
"Because they will need to spend less time checking and emptying the bins, our workers will be able to dedicate more of their time to cleaning work in the city centre.
"We know that the vast majority of people can't stand litter and want to do their bit to help us become a Tidy City by 2020. This is another big step forward in our bid to make littering unacceptable in Manchester."
In a town hall meeting last year when councillors signed off the move, concerns were raised about the standard of street cleaning and 'overflowing' litter bins in the city centre.
Plans to introduce the high-tech equipment were first considered five years ago as part of a drive to clean up the city before the town hall ultimately decided to opt for traditional bins.
Some of those will now be moved out of the city centre into other particularly busy areas of Manchester, while 51 solar-powered replacements will be ushered into the central shopping district.
In partnership with Keep Britain Tidy, Manchester City Council is carrying out the Keep Manchester Tidy campaign, with the goal of making Manchester the country's first 'Tidy City' by 2020.
