Cornwall Anti-Cuts Alliance

Cornwall Council is currently asking the public's view on rubbish and recycling collections.

I am supporting Option B for Cornwall Council’s rubbish and recycling collection survey. Option B is for food waste and recycling to be collected weekly and rubbish and garden waste to be collected fortnightly.

My reasons for this are; The most recent figures show that it costs about £1.99 to collect and landfill a bag of rubbish but only £0.41 to recycle a box or bag of recyclable materials. Option B will significantly improve Cornwall’s recycling rates.

Option B is the best environmental option. Currently, Cornwall Council’s contractor recycles some 250 tonnes of paper and card each week. Recycling just one tonne saves 31,069 litres of water and 2,105 litres of oil. We must decide upon Option B to save resources which will become increasingly scarce.

The survey has been sent to every household in Cornwall on the back of the 2011/12 Guide to Public Services. You can fill in the tear off strip and return it by freepost, or drop it into any one stop shop or library. Alternatively, you can take part in the survey by following this link; http://www.cornwall.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=27233

Please remember to include your postcode.

Weekly recycling will encourage and provide a focus for the use of the recycling service and reducing waste. Recycling levels will be higher in Option B as the frequency of collection will encourage us all to use this service instead of the black bag residual waste collection.

The weekly food waste collections will encourage higher recycling rates and waste reduction. This will be much greater in Option B as householders are encouraged to focus on their waste arisings.

Given that well over 50% of our waste can be recycled, the space required is less for Option B because food waste and recycling are been collected weekly.

The Councils that are the leading recycling authorities have their residual waste collected fortnightly, examples include recycling at over 60% Staffordshire Moorlands DC, South Oxfordshire DC, Rochford DC, Cotswold DC, and South Hams DC at 57%.

West Devon Borough Council have recently introduced Option B. This is what they have to say about their new household waste collection arrangements;

“The new waste and recycling service for West Devon is proving to be a huge success. Now with a greater range of items being accepted residents have never recycled so much. Since the scheme started in the Autumn there has been a massive increase in the amount of recycling being collected.”

People sometimes raise concerns over the collection of fortnightly residual waste. It is important to remember that Option B includes weekly collection of food waste. The Waste Resource Action Program has undertaken a wide ranging literature review (July 2009) which examined over 150 published papers and documents dealing with a range of potential health impacts linked to waste management, particularly those that investigated the impact of collection frequency on public and occupational health. No documented evidence of a direct link between the frequency of waste collection and any actual health impacts on householders or waste collectors was found.

I hope that you will join me in ticking Option B on the rubbish and recycling collection survey. This is the best environmental and financial option for Cornwall.

With best wishes,

Julian

Julian German

Cabinet Member for Environment, Climate Change & Waste Management

Cornwall Council

Letter sent to West Briton by Tim Thomson

It seems that the smoke and the mirrors are still being operated by the forces of democracy!

No less than two of last week’s correspondents mentioned that it would cost us in excess of £300 million ‘not to have’ the incinerator at St Dennis. Considering that Councillor Robertson, in his pleading letter to Eric Pickles, did not feel able to put the cost of losing the planning battle any higher than £30 million, with a few million more for additional landfill tax, I can’t understand where this £300 million figure came from.

If you keep in mind that the £30 million figure was being put about by the pro-incinerator lobby, it is safe to assume it is on the high side. Add to that the fact that it would include the purchase from Sita of the assets they already have in place, and it starts to look quite tame!

If we consider the figure of £30 million in the context of what the incinerator is going to cost us over thirty years, it is pretty small beer.

I would stake a significant chunk of my pension on the fact that an independent auditor would find that having the incinerator will cost us a great deal more than not having it. Of course I can’t be completely sure because the relevant details of the contract are not available to the general public.

I would stake another chunk of pension that, contrary to the statements of Councillor Robertson and his friends, alternative solutions could be up and running more quickly than the incinerator if the political will was there, and if that were to happen the County would be a greener and wealthier place.

Despite Mr Pickles and his decision, the incinerator does not have to be built. Greener, cheaper alternatives are available. Am I optimistic that that will happen? Not really – my faith in our local authority is fading fast! But life is full of surprises.