I understand folks' suspicions when it comes to local authority spending but actually, in this instance, I can see some merit in the proposal... at least as it would apply to my neighbourhood (which isn't Bury).
My own home is inaccessible to the big wheelie-bin lorries and so when wheelie bins were introduced special arrangements were agreed for me to leave the bins at an alternative location on some ancillary land of mine that abuts the main road, rather than the usual 'just outside the gate'. Similar things, but different, arrangements apply to other folks in the lane. One couple are elderly with poor mobility, so they won a concession that the collection crews will actually walk (100 yards) up to their house to collect the wheelie bins.
All well and good, but it proved very difficult for the managers to convey all these 'special cases' to the collection crews, and my bins went uncollected for the first few weeks. Thereafter, there's been regular glitches when the crews forgot the special arrangements, maybe because there's a stand-in driver or whatever. Each time my bins go uncollected, I have to grump at the council. the council in turn then grump at the refuse company, and then the crew needs to make an extra trip, outside normal hours, to catch up on the missed bins. Clearly, all that must be costing money.
If the electronic organisers were to cut down on missed collections, as seems to me to be the aim, then it may indeed be cost-effective overall. And I'd have one less thing to be grumpy about, but that can't be helped