THE leader of Bolton’s Green party has said he does not believe forcing people to recycle by introducing slimmer grey bins is the correct way to increase recycling rates.

Bolton Council is planning to swap resident’s 240 litre grey waste bins for slimmer 140 litre bins in a bid to boost the amount of recycling that takes place across the borough and reduce the amount the authority pays in removing residual waste.

The authority’s environment chief Cllr Nick Peel has said that the policy will not be a “one size fits all” approach and that families who struggle with the smaller capacity bins will be offered help, providing they prove that they are recycling as much as is possible.

The council is targetting the 20 per cent of people which it believes are not recycling at all in a bid to raise the borough’s recycling rate from 38 per cent to about 45 per cent.

But Mr Johnson, whose national party wants to increase recycling rates to 70 per cent by 2020, said he believes the current plan will simply “put people’s noses out of joint”.

He said: “Yes of course we want to increase recycling targets but I think there are other ways to do it, like education.

“I don’t think they have really thought this through. The bins are full at the moment and I don’t think the forcing method will work.

“The majority of people in Bolton are recycling but I think the council doesn’t have much faith in the Bolton public.”

Mr Johnson added that he believes the move could result in a situation where “bin bags are being left at the side of bins”.

Cllr Peel said: "We do a lot of educating on the subject, knocking on doors and having one-to-one meetings. It is time consuming and expensive but we will keep doing it.

“It is easy for Alan Johnson to criticise from the sidelines but at the end of the day we have to get this landfill tax down because it is costing all of us.

“Our recycling rate has hit a plateau and we need to get the residual waste down — other authorities have brought in this plan with success — so we know it works.”