A number of Greater Manchester councillors have warned that local residents “will go mad” if they’re forced to have seven different wheelie bins.
The government is looking to introduce new measures to standardise the waste collection process in England from 2023 in a bid to boost recycling rates as part of its proposed Environment Bill, and it means that households could be issued four bins for dry recyclables, as well as separate containers for non-recyclable materials, garden waste, and food waste.
As part of the process shake-up, the government is also pushing for food waste to be collected separately and on a weekly basis.
But Greater Manchester is hoping to avoid the changes.
The region’s waste and recycling committee fear that the proposals will lead to “streets full of bins” and clutter that could block pavements for people with mobility issues.
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Waste officials also say that some homes in the region, such as terraced houses and apartment blocks, may not even be able to accommodate the new bins, and on top of that, the extra lorries needed to collect the additional bins could cause congestion and an increase in vehicle emissions.
Concerns have also been raised about a potential lack of drivers to man the bin lorries, as earlier this month, collections were stopped in South Manchester due to national shortage of heavy goods vehicle drivers and COVID-related issues.
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The government is looking to introduce new measures to standardise the waste collection process in England from 2023 / Credit: Geograph
This is just one of the reasons why the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) has made the case to the government that the four-bin system should remain in place.
Labour councillors for Bury, Trafford, and Stockport have all voiced their concerns.
Speaking at a waste and recycling committee on earlier this month, Allan Quinn – Labour Councillor for Bury said: “I think we’re paying the price for being 20 years ahead of the game [as] we’ve got a system that works, and if it’s not broken, don’t try and fix it.
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“Residents will go mad over this.”
On the other hand, Conservative councillor Adele Warren said that she could see the merits in weekly food collections, even if it will be “incredibly challenging”.
She pointed out that local authorities in Greater Manchester are striving towards carbon neutrality by 2038, and that this could lead to more food waste being turned into a type of renewable energy called biogas to help towards that goal.
The government is expected to respond to local authorities in the autumn, with further consultation on statutory guidance and minimum service standards expected in 2022.
Featured Image – Flickr
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Bernardo Silva shares hilarious X-rated clash with John Stones before they were teammates
Danny Jones
This long weekend not only saw Man City manager and sporting legend Pep Guardiola bid goodbye to the club after a decade, but so did John Stones and Bernardo Silva, and the latter shared a hilarious story about an encounter before their bromance in blue.
Can’t lie, this one nearly made us spit out our tea when we first watched it…
Following the trio’s respective final games, this late May bank holiday Monday saw yet another City parade pass through Manchester, and as the party continued over at the Etihad Campus and Co-op Live for the afterparty, the boys got up on stage to say some parting words.
In Silva’s case, he chose to share, rather fittingly, some very choice words indeed, as he talked about his time playing against Stones when he was still in France.
From ‘little soft c**t’ to brothers lifting trebles together… football heritage.
Safe to say no one was expecting that particular expletive to come out of his mouth – we reckon not even most of the squad themselves.
During the Yorkshireman‘s first season at Manchester City, he came up against the creative midfielder in the Champions League when he was still playing at Ligue 1 side AS Monaco.
As you can see in the clip above, while it wasn’t the friendliest of exchanges back then, they soon buried the hatchet and chalked it off as nothing more than football.
Both fierce competitors in their own right, they look to be plenty soft with each other off the pitch ever since they became teammates.
So much so, in fact, that the duo ended up being the face of a pop-up Man City pub earlier this month, recreating the famous photo of the Gallagher brothers wearing the 1993/94 kits.
Credit: Manchester City FC (publicity pictures)
It’s plain to see in the clip how much love there is between the two, all these years later, and the story itself got a rapturous reaction from their peers and the crowd alike.
Silva has plenty of fans across Europe, both as a player and purely as a character; you only have to look at how Jack Grealish often reiterates his love for the Portuguese playmaker as a person and Premier League character, or even how pundits aligned with rival clubs like Gary Neville waxes lyrical about him.
And then we come to Pep himself.
Guardiola was rightfully given a fantastic guard of honour at the stadium itself on Sunday, with his speech making for an emotional moment for all those in the stands and watching at home, and City supporters at the parade made sure to give him a proper send-off.
Featured Images — Manchester City FC/CITY+ (screenshot via YouTube)
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66% of Brits consider Manchester to be the second city not Birmingham
Emily Sergeant
A new survey has revealed that more than half of Brits now consider Manchester to be the second city, rather than Birmingham.
At this point, the debate over where should hold the unofficial title of ‘Britain’s second city’ has raged for almost as long as London has been the capital… but now, in a bid to get to the bottom of the issue, a new YouGov study of more than 55,000 Brits investigates which urban areas the public feel have the strongest claim to holding the title.
Overall, it was revealed that 66% of Brits believe Manchester has a ‘strong case’ for being considered Britain’s second city, compared to 48% for Birmingham, and 49% for Edinburgh
When picking the city they most consider to be Britain’s second city, the public are, however, divided as 34% say it’s Manchester while 30% opt for Birmingham.
66% of Brits consider Manchester to be the second city not Birmingham / Credit: Chris Curry | Josh Taylor (via Unsplash)
As you can probably imagine, the answer to this age-old question varies significantly depending on where you are in the country.
Belief that Birmingham is Britain’s second city is concentrated in and around the West Midlands, whereas Manchester’s claim likewise finds its strongest support on its home patch (77% in Greater Manchester), though this does not extend to every part of the North West, with the people of Merseyside being more likely to consider Liverpool (34%) the second city than Manchester (27%).
Perhaps key to explaining why having a population roughly twice the size of Manchester’s doesn’t immediately settle the 'second city' debate in Birmingham’s favour is that just 14% of Britons consider population size to be the most important factor in determining a second city… pic.twitter.com/ThtAgJSKqq
Despite all this though, Manchester being considered the second city is the most common view across a ‘reasonably wide’ spread of England, YouGov found.
Beyond geographical differences, there’s also seen to be a small generational divide over the title too.
Among younger Brits, Manchester is the clear favourite, with 42% of 18-24 year olds seeing it as Britain’s second city, while Birmingham edges out Manchester for the silver city medal among over-65s by a margin of 35% to 29%.
The Manc -
28th July 2021 
