Over the last year, Piccadilly Labour have campaigned for more investment in the city centre to tackle rubbish and littering that continues to blight major cities across the UK.

As well as launching campaigns alongside Keep Britain Tidy, Manchester Labour have looked at new technology to make collecting rubbish from bins more efficient. Piccadilly Labour Cllr Jon-Connor Lyons, the Executive member for Neighbourhoods Cllr Rabnawaz Akbar and Deansgate Labours Cllr Marcus Johns have campaigned for and won the necessary funding to install 51 new ‘Big Belly Bins’.

The bins themselves have 6 times the capacity of the ordinary bins you can see across the city. They include a compactor, solar panels and a foot pedal if people do not wish to touch the handle. They also send a signal to the waste collectors when they are almost full, meaning that waste collectors aren’t having to guess when they might be full or not, but they’ll know.

Cllr Jon-Connor Lyons said “This is exactly what this city needs. New, innovative ways of dealing with litter and rubbish on our streets”. He added “It’s peoples responsibility to put their rubbish in the bins, otherwise they’ll get a £100 fine. It’s unfair for law-abiding tax payers to shell out more money to pick up the rubbish of those who can’t be bothered to locate a bin. They wouldn’t drop litter in their neighbourhood, so please don’t do it in ours.”

Cllr Rabnawaz Akbar said “”The new BigBelly bins will provide people who work and live in the city centre and also the thousands of visitors 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”.

There are currently over 750 Council bins just in the city centre alone, not accounting for private bins on private land which the public can access.