A COUNCIL says switching to fortnightly bin collections has helped it save more than £5m.

Durham County Council rolled out alternate weekly collections of waste and recycling across the county between April and June 2012.

It has also closed several household waste recycling centres and made other changes.

Now it says the shake-up has saved more than £5m and cut the amount of rubbish going to landfill by 80 per cent.

The council says there is more work still to do but its ‘reduce, reuse, recycle’ approach has been successful.

Councillor Brian Stephens, the cabinet member for neighbourhoods and local partnerships, added: “We can also see that residents are supporting the shift from burying waste to recycling and reusing materials both via the kerbside collections we offer and through our recycling centres.

“There is always more work to do in this area but this is an excellent first year.”

The cabinet will discuss the progress when it meets at County Hall, Durham, on Wednesday (October 15).