On Tuesday I attended a meeting of the Environmental Scrutiny Panel to discuss, among other things, waste collection and enforcement in the town, and to see what improvements could be delivered. A number of officers from Streetcare were in attendance along with members of the public (including a constituent from Redlands) and Greater Reading Environment Network.
Waste collection report:
Under current government targets, the amount of rubbish we send to landfill needs to be reduced from 65 % to 40 % by 2010. The cost to the Council to send a tonne of waste to landfill is £90, but this figure will rise as the cost is increasing year-on-year by £8 in landfill tax. Thus a 1 % reduction in waste going to landfill leads to a £40K saving!
I asked about increasing recycling provision for business, as this is potentially profitable which could pay for improvements to the residential service.
At present, batteries and fluorescent light bulbs have to be driven by residents to the Smallmead recycling centre – which I understand is an amazing site which can recycle just about anything.
Unfortunately, I’ve never seen it as like many other in Reading I haven’t got a car. I suspect the majority of these items end up in landfill, and leach mercury into the ground – in my view this is an environmental disaster waiting to happen.
I asked for the sequence of events form a call from a member of the public to the call centre reporting a missed bin collection. Several residents have complained about this and that in the past the call centre staff waited for 5 people to complain before the road was re-collected. Daisy and the Lib Dem team have campaigned about this for a while I was reassured that this issue had been looked at and the call centre was trying to improve its working practises.
I then asked if the current on-street recycling trials outside Christchurch Road shops could be rolled out further. Although these seemed to have been a success – with minimal contamination – expense seemed to be the main stumbling block. I suggested using more compact units and have them sponsored by local businesses to cover the costs. This scheme would be of particular use in the town centre and in our parks.
Food waste currently represents 30 % of the waste which is sent to landfill. Now, it could be argued
that this is biodegradable waste. Unfortunately, the clue is in the name as the food is eaten by various microbes they give off methane – which not only accounts for the bad smell on landfill sites but also contributes to global warming as methane is 25 times more efficient as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So the argument to do something else with this waste is strong. We have campaigned for food waste collection for a long time and are pressing RBC to reform the joint waste PFI
Labour tried to push for the education option to convince people to buy less food and waste less. However, I don’t think this will reduce 30 % of our landfill waste. We asked for anaerobic digester of fermenter technologies to be investigated. As these lead to minimal CO2 out put and can lead to fuel production in the form of methanol/ethanol or IPA. Officers suggested 20 % of food waste could be collected – saving £800K in landfill tax
Improving glass recycling provision has long been an issue the Lib Dems have campaigned for in Reading . The increased numbers of take-to bottle banks we campaigned for have certainly improved matters. Daisy and Kirsten successfully got them installed around Redlands earlier in the year – after a long wait
The report prepared by officers was very damming of door-to-door collecting of glass. Collecting glass in this way was estimated to increase CO2 emissions 150 tonnes per year, but the savings in energy to reform the glass would account for 130 tonnes – net output 20 tonnes!
We believe this is worth while, but as a compromise the option of small on-street recycling bins could be considered – especially in our parks and the town centre.
It worth noting that the last former Lead member for ENCAS, Steve Waite, had been opposed on principle to glass collection, but at this meeting Labour panel members were in support of it. The current Lead member didn’t see fit to turn up to this meeting for comment for some reason, which was disappointing.
There were a number of positive developments to report: waste support officers and environmental liaison officers have been doing a fantastic job of co-ordinating EVA’s and sorting out graffiti/litter hotspots.
Also the efforts of Streetcare to tidy up bin store on council owned properties like the Hexham road estate (after years of pressure for Daisy and us) and replace the 10’s of small bins with larger communal bins. This has scheme has also led to London Road properties no longer having to have 4+ bins per property, which was a real eyesore.
The recommended action from officers following the discussion was to simply ‘Note the report’. Not on this day, however! Cllr Ricky Duveen, Chair of the Environment Scrutiny Panel proposed a motion based on our Lib Dem manifesto, which recommended the following to Cabinet:
- Praise work done by waste support officers
- Extend the use of smaller vehicles for collection in other area’s of the town
- Produce a Waste Minimisation Strategy
- Investigate food waste recycling and possible fuel production or microgeneration of power
- Set-up a cross party group to improve our recycling provision
- Investigate increasing our trade waste contracts
- Investigate on-street recycling roll-out
Cllr Chris Maskell, a Labour Panel member were very anti any form of amendment and had nothing practical to add to the discussion. Another Labour member admitted he knew very little about the issues and felt the officers should make all the decisions.
Fortunately, the Lib Dem members, and I have to say the Tory members were much more well-informed and had studied the officers’ report in more detail. Interestingly, after all the Labour posturing and an outburst from the sidelines of the meeting by Cllr Tony Page, Labour members voted for our motion!
I look forward to the response in Cabinet with interest.
I thought that you could recycle batteries at the Civic Centre?
Posted by: Rob White | January 09, 2009 at 04:39 PM
There is also a Scheme in Tilehurst ward (Lib Dem controlled) to collect batteries from shop-based deposit sites.
This is what I think could be rolled out throughout Reading, encouraging people to deposit batteries (and more importantly fluorescent light bulbs) instead of putting them in the grey bins - Leading to increased levels of environmental Mercury.
More support should be given to freecycle schemes so as perfectly usable electronic goods, etc, are reused and not dumped on our streets.
Posted by: Glenn Goodall | January 09, 2009 at 04:47 PM