Letter: Don't dump the recycling progress
Correspondent • Published 1 Apr 2010 07:00
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READING Tories say they will introduce weekly bin collections as soon as "practically possible" as one of their main manifesto pledges for the local elections, combined with freezing council tax (Chronicle, March 25).
This is errant nonsense, at best a cheap stunt to boost their flagging campaign locally and nationally, at worst, a dishonest deceit which does not stand close scrutiny.
In fact it would prove "practically impossible" and cost council tax payers a great deal of money, leaving aside environmental and practical considerations. Using an extra fleet of trucks to pick up the black and red bins separately, will leave a massive carbon footprint, cause extra traffic congestion and will hinder our attempts to keep our narrow streets clear of bins when they are not being left out for collection.
Since the introduction of alternate weekly collections, combined with a dedicated green waste collection, recycling rates in Reading have hit an historic high and we are well on the way to an initial target of 40%.
Combined with the roll out of neighbourhood bottle banks, the improved facilities of the award-winning household waste recycling centre at Smallmead, and the deal we have struck to send 30,000 tons per year to a waste to energy plant near Heathrow, it has meant the amount we now send to landfill has decreased by roughly a third.
The Tory manifesto also blandly talks about "new methods" of recycling as if there was some magic wand to be waved, but I have to tell the public this is another deceit.
Reading BC has combined with Wokingham and Bracknell councils to form what is called the RE3 partnership, enabling us to build the new facilities at Smallmead but also to bring on stream more quickly other methods of recycling, the obvious example being food waste, but only when this is commercially viable. We are also actively looking to widen the scope for re-use of products that are thrown away and to increase the range of materials that can be recycled, most recently household oil, but all this work is underway and for Reading Tories to somehow claim they were the first to think of it, is at the best disingenuous.
Paul Gittings, Lead Cllr for Environment and Sustainability Reading Borough Council
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