Council waste sites are to receive a facelift through a £2 million cash boost, following Bradford Council's first refurbishment project in Bingley.

Extra funding has been allocated to improve the Council's seven household tips to try to increase recycling in the district.

The boost comes as the Telegraph & Argus launched its Bin It for Bradford campaign to target litter and encourage recycling.

The campaign aims to motivate householders to recycle and reduce the waste sent to landfill. And with work now complete on the Council's first refurbishment project, Dowley Gap in Bingley, recycling in Bradford is set to become easier.

Richard Longcake, the Council's principal waste management officer, said: "We want to make the household waste sites more user-friendly with better signs, lighting and fencing.

"And we want to improve the recycling facilities on offer at each site."

The £500,000 redevelopment of Dowley Gap was the Council's largest project and involved closing the site for three months to enable the work to be carried out.

Mr Longcake said: "We have completely redesigned the site so there is now a dedicated area for recycling which offers additional facilities that were not available before."

Batteries, paint, electrical equipment and wood waste are just some of the other items householders can now recycle at the site.

Mr Longcake said: "We have also redesigned the layout to improve on-site queuing and have allocated a separate area away from the public where our own vehicles can operate."

He said the construction of the Bingley relief road had prompted the refurbishment.

"We lost space as a consequence of the new road and had to look at ways of making the site more efficient with the space we had," he said.

And with the new split-level Dowley Gap site reopened earlier this week, the Council plans to start work on other sites in the district.

Mr Longcake added: "We are making minor improvements to the surface areas at other sites and will be increasing the bays to accommodate skips to include more for recycling purposes."

Mr Longcake said the Council's investment in household waste sites was important for encouraging people to take part in recycling.

He said: "Around 40 per cent of the rubbish taken to household waste sites is recycled.

"So the more people we can encourage to visit them the better.

"They are a good way of making sure waste gets recycled."

Councillor Anne Hawkesworth, Executive member for Environ-ment, said: "We really need every household in the district to take up recycling to cut down on the amount of rubbish we generate.

"And with the extra spending on household waste sites, it should make it even easier for people to bring in their recycling."