A RADICAL shake-up in the way Bolton's rubbish is collected has been approved by town hall bosses.

The move will see recycling schemes extended to many more homes across the borough.

An alternate weekly bin collection will also be implemented, meaning the domestic black bins will only be emptied every 14 days.

Council chiefs hope the recycling scheme, which will cost £400,000, will encourage more householders to separate their waste into separate containers and help the authority meet strict recycling targets by March next year.

Under the new system, many homes will have four containers for their waste: a black wheelie bin for general rubbish, a green box for items such as bottles and cans, sacks for waste paper, and a green wheelie bin for garden and some kitchen waste.

Householders will have their normal bins and green boxes collected every other week, with the waste paper sacks paper picked up every seven days.

Homes with gardens will have their green bins collected on the same weeks as the green boxes.

Money will also be spent educating people about the need to recycle and families will be given larger or extra bins if requested. The £10 charge for the bulky waste collection service introduced last year will also be retained.

A new council committee has been formed to think through the proposals before they are implemented.

Cllr Roger Hayes, the council's executive member for direct services, said: "This is an exciting opportunity for Bolton to transform the way it deals with its waste.

"People are going to have to gradually change their habits and get used to using these new recycling containers because their normal bins will not be collected so often."

Bolton is facing a fine of £1.5 million next March unless it raises the amount it recycles from 12.5 per cent to 20 per cent, and again to 33 per cent by the 2010/11 financial year.

At the same time, the council will have to reduce the amount of municipal waste put into landfill sites to 75 per cent of that produced in 1995.

There are around 115,000 homes in the Bolton borough, which roughly produce around a tonne of waste every year.

Currently, 42,000 homes have green boxes, 25,000 homes have green bins and around 100,000 houses receive a paper recycling collection service.

Under the plans, an extra 38,000 homes will receive green boxes and another 16,000 will get green bins.