A BOROUGH will begin a major shake-up of bin collection next week.

From Wednesday, Blackburn with Darwen Council will start delivering 60,000 new blue bins.

The new bins, and blue bags for those who need them, will be used for clean cardboard and paper.

The change is a bid to improve the borough’s low recycling rates of 30 per cent of rubbish to 50 per cent by 2025.

Residents’ burgundy bins for general waste will still be collected in exactly the same way, once every two weeks – with the grey and blue bins for recyclables then being collected alternately every fortnight.

A revised collection regime will be introduced later this month or early next once the roll-out has been completed.

The grey bins will then be restricted to glass, cans and plastic.

Cllr Jim Smith, Blackburn with Darwen Council’s environment,boss, said: “We have some of the lowest recycling rates in the country and we desperately want to change that and need to be doing more.

“We’ve spoken to our residents and they’ve told us recycling can often be confusing – especially knowing what should go in each bin. This is the same right across the country.

“The blue bin will make it simpler and will also ensure that what we are recycling isn’t damaged by all being mixed together.

“We’re investing £1.5m in the new bins, bags and collections, and that will be recouped in the first two years.”

Leaflets will be delivered to homes across the borough over the coming days containing information about the blue bins and a guide to ‘what goes where’.

Cllr Smith’s Conservative counterpart Cllr Paul Marrow sad: “If recycling in the borough had been done properly initially, we would not have had to to this.

“It has been very costly for the council and we would not have the low recycling rates we have in the borough.

“If we had kept the weekly collection of burgundy bins and sorted out recycling properly in the first place we would not be at this point with a major fly-tipping problem.

Darwen East Liberal Democrat Cllr Roy Davies said: “I think in some areas this will be a waste of the £1.5million this is costing the council.

“It will confuse some residents and other will just use it as another bin for general rubbish.”