IF you have been to the household waste recycling centres in Atherton and Lowton recently you might have wondered why the teams there have been intercepting and splitting black bags.

They are not being nosy and finding out what residents are choosing to throw out, it is all part of Wigan Council’s drive to recycle as much as possible.

Since starting the bag splitting trials in January the council and its partners FCC Environment have recycled an additional 222,105kg of materials that might have otherwise gone to landfill.

This has helped to take the council’s overall recycling rate at household recycling sites to 63.28 per cent, an improvement of eight per cent from last year.

The overall recycling rate for the borough is still under target at 43 per cent and needs to reach 50 per cent by 2020.

The council hopes the move from collecting bins every three weeks instead of every fortnight will help with this.

Cllr Kevin Anderson, cabinet member for environment, said: “We need to recycle as much as we can, so officers will rummage in the bags to ensure everything that can be recycled is recycled.

“Once a bag has been deposited in the general waste tip, that’s it.

“Especially with the new collections coming in, residents need to be recycling more and recycling right.

“There is lots of advice and support available if people are struggling.”

Tony Waterworth, FCC Environments’ site business manager, said: “The public has shown some concern about whether we are checking up on them, but as soon as we explain that it is all about recycling more they understand.

“We always have a chat as we rummage in the bags.”

Materials the teams look for in black bags are electric items such as hairdryers and electric food whisks; textiles including clothes, bedding and towels; metals including saucepans and bike parts; brass including ornaments; cardboard from delivery boxes and Amazon parcels; wire and copper from household DIY; steel and aluminium, and not just from food cans which can be recycled at home; paper including wrapping paper, printer paper and newsletters; hard plastics, from drainpipes to old toys; wood from indoors and outdoors; plugs and sockets from household DIY chores; books, videos, DVDs and CDs; old paint tins; and batteries.

The recycling centres at Chanters Industrial Estate in Atherton and on Slag Lane in Lowton are open from 8am to 7.45pm every day.

You can check the wide range of items that can be recycled before going to the sites by going online at wigan.gov.uk/recycling.