A HUGE row has broken out over a Bury Council U-turn to bring back the regular "weekly" bin collections.

Town hall bosses admit that their controversial recycling policy has proved unpopular with some residents, and are reinstating the original service for an unspecified period.

But the Tories and Lib Dems have accused Labour of a blatant attempt to win votes in the June 10 elections: ballot papers are going out today (Fri May 28).

Their claims have been denied by council leader John Byrne, who said it was time to analyse the success of what was a pilot scheme. He said the weekly bin reinstatement would last "for the foreseeable future" and it was "a distinct possibility" that it would become permanent.

The council says that the alternating collection service, which covers 28,000 households in the borough, has been a success. Since it started in March, it has saved 2,500 tonnes of waste from going to landfill.

But many complained that halving the residual collections to once a fortnight was leading to overflowing bins, smells and health hazards.

Leaflets will go to all houses telling them about the reinstatement, which will start from June 14.

Mr Mark Sanders, chief executive of Bury Council, said: "Our feedback says that people are very positive about recycling and in contributing to the future of the planet, but they are not so happy about the fortnightly collection of residual waste.

"Because of that, we are prepared to reinstate the weekly residual collections, and not to extend the recycling pilot across the borough until the evaluation has been completed.

"But it will be a problem if people go back to chucking all their waste in the grey bin. Now people have got into the habit of separating their rubbish, we really need their support to continue to do that."

The cost of reinstating the weekly collections would be £260,000 in a full year. This would come down to around £60,000 for a three-month period, and be met from contingency budgets, as there would no longer be any need to put on extra weekly collections for large households

Mr Sanders said the recycling scheme was a big step on the way to reaching a Government target, which says Bury must recycle 20 per cent of its waste by 2005/06 or face massive fines.

"However, there has been a lot of public concern, and we have to react to that," he added.

The waste collection scheme will be evaluated later this year by the council's economy, environment and transport scrutiny commission.

MORE plastics could be recycled if the council receives positive results from a one-day test it carried out this week. On Wednesday (May 26), the wagons collected all types of plastic from the special boxes, rather than rejecting certain types as they normally do.