PUBLIC protests have forced town hall bosses to do a U-turn and bring back the regular "weekly" bin collections.

They admit that the controversial recycling policy has proved unpopular with many residents, and are reinstating the original service for a trial period, probably three months.

However, they are appealing to the public to keep using the various other bins, boxes and bags they have been given, and not return to simply throwing everything into the grey bin.

The council says that the new scheme, which covers 28,000 households in the borough, has been a success. Since it started in March, it has collected 350,000kg of waste which has not had to be landfilled.

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 in the next two or three weeks.

Mr Mark Sanders, chief executive of Bury Council, said that the new scheme had been running for three months, and it was time to analyse it. The council wanted to know what effect having more grey bin collections would have on recycling rates.

"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," he said.

"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 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 figure will come down to around £60,000 for a three-month period -- to be met from contingency budgets -- once savings are made, as the extra weekly pick-ups for large families will no longer be needed.

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, the wagons collected all types of plastic from the special boxes, rather than rejecting certain types as they normally do.