I've blogged a couple of times before about the perverse recycling scheme currently operating where I live; the weirdness continues, according to this week's edition of the local paper. Last time I wrote about this, it was at least still possible to dispose of some of our (cardboard) packaging waste by tearing it up and adding it to the 'green waste' bin.
Now, it seems, we will no longer be allowed to do that. Cardboard and kitchen waste can no longer be put in the green bin, which can now only be used for biodegradable garden waste (of which, as you may remember, we have none anyway... because it goes onto our compost heap). Instead, the council will be offering householders advice on... composting and where to buy compost bins. What fantastic added value.
The justification they are claiming for banning cardboard is "new tougher regulations and standards", which is disingenuous. Domestic green waste has actually been a revenue-earner for someone - whether the council itself or its waste management sub-contractors - because it has been being used to produce commercially resellable compost. As the newspaper article notes, that compost is being produced to BSI and Soil Association standards - and apparently that is what is compromised by the proportion of cardboard and kitchen waste.
Here's the nonense, though, illustrated by two quotations from the article:
"Cardboard can take months to biodegrade, whereas the commercial compoiting process take twelve weeks." (?)
"Unlike other areas that use different techniques, [the council's] composting site does not have the facilities to process kitchen waste to the required standard."
So it's not that it can't be done, it's that the revenue from the last 18 months of free household compost has not been invested in keeping the facilities up to the standard needed to do the job.
So what are we expected to do with this waste now? Each household will now have to take its own cardboard to 'mini recycling centres'. So much for carbon neutrality. Not only that, but it turns out that those 'mini recycling centres' are actually the 'hoppers' which currently take bottles, cans and paper (which is vital, given the paltry size of the recycling crate we're provided with). Apparently they are now to be converted so that they take cardboard and plastic bottles instead. For goodness' sake! This isn't disposing of the garbage, it's just rearranging it.
As for kitchen waste, it "can no longer be collected". That's what it says; I'm assuming they mean that it will have to go into the grey bin, which means it will go to landfill or incineration. So much for recycling.
Recycling is one of those policy areas which critically depends on the active participation of the householder. Instead, we've had a scheme which doesn't address the public's needs, doesn't save on energy consumption, puts the workload on the householder, makes money off the proceeds, and then fails to re-invest so as to provide a workable service.
This has been a thoroughly flawed policy, badly conceived, and executed poorly without the transparency which the householders deserve.
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Posted by Ian Mitchell on February 12, 2007 at 01:30 PM GMT+00:00 #
[I think that's enough now, dear. Mrs. W]
Posted by Robin Wilton on February 12, 2007 at 02:00 PM GMT+00:00 #
Posted by nick upton on February 12, 2007 at 02:20 PM GMT+00:00 #
Your mention of 'crisis management politics' is both interesting and timely. The other day ("When It Snowed") I spoke at an event which was all about protecting the Critical National Infrastructure.
I was reassured by the competence, commitment and experience of the people involved, but it has to be stressed that these were the specialists explicitly responsible for planning CNI protection.
When you translate that into the potential requirement for local councils' line-of-business staff (stretched as they are to cope with normal day-to-day ops) to undertake more difficult work under conditions of a civil emergency, it does rather send a chill down the dorsals.
Posted by Robin Wilton on February 13, 2007 at 01:58 PM GMT+00:00 #