08:07 Monday 2nd June 2014
BBC Radio Cambridgeshire
[P]AUL STAINTON: We’re talking recycling this morning, and good news and bad news. The good news, we are recycling more. Bad news, not doing it right. The Government says more and more contaminating items are finding their way into our recycling bins, meaning more waste is in the end having to go to landfill. It can cost us all money as well. Councils can get paid for waste they recycle, but have to pay to put rubbish in the land. Steve Emington spoke to me earlier from letsrecycle.com, and he explained why he thinks there’s such a problem with it.
(TAPE)
STEVE EMINGTON: 90% of people get it pretty much right. But then you do get householders sometimes who might put the odd curry in, or children’s nappy, stuff which you really wouldn’t logically put into recycling. And that’s more likely to be the problem. We’re all rushing around, busy lives and the like. So it might be easier to put the wrong thing in the bin one day, just absent minded or don’t necessarily know. It could be a call for more education perhaps. Sometimes the message doesn’t get through, people don’t understand. It’s not always easy.
PAUL STAINTON: Sue says: “The tightening of council budgets hasn’t helped either.”
STEVE EMINGTON: It’s back to economics. At the moment councils with their financial pressures, recycling is getting hot on two fronts. One green waste, because some people have got huge gardens and they’re trying to get money back for the service; and secondly the councils have got less money for education, so you won’t be getting as many leaflets through the door, or publicity campaigns to actually help you, tell you what can be recycled.
(LIVE)
PAUL STAINTON: Well Ray Manning is the Leader of South Cambridgeshire District Council, the county with the highest rates of recycling in Cambridgeshire. Ray, good morning.
RAY MANNING: Good morning.
PAUL STAINTON: So what can everybody else learn from you do you think?
RAY MANNING: Well I think we are doing well. You’ve already said we’re the highest and we’re in the top ten. We’re doing very well. I heard the point about more education and yes, that’s the answer. But I think that we publish something every month in every issue of our magazine, and also our people go out and talk to schools, because they’re the next generation as well. People with children will know that you get told, hang on a minute mum, or hang on dad, you shouldn’t be doing that. They tend to be more vigilant than we are.
PAUL STAINTON: But it is part of the problem also that it’s not universal, is it? Some people have got their black bin, the green bin, the grey bin, the brown bin. Then we’ve got different systems for how we do it. How do you do it? Explain how your bin sorting works in South Cambridgeshire.
RAY MANNING: We’ve got the three. We’ve got the black bin for all refuse. We’ve got the blue bin for the recycling, and the green bin which is for the organic waste.
PAUL STAINTON: Yes. So it’s all different, isn’t it, from everywhere else you see. Is that part of the problem, with people got used to one particular system, one colour co-ordinated system? It might help, mightn’t it?
RAY MANNING: It probably would, but you can’t do that now, because the cost would be enormous. Huntingdon District Council have got different coloured bins to us. To scrap and recycle the bins I think .., Anyway it doesn’t take very long. How often do you move house? It’s not actually a monthly occurrence.
PAUL STAINTON: So what happens to your blue bin waste then?
RAY MANNING: We try and recycle the two. The most important thing to us is that we’ve got this paper caddy in the top of our blue one, because if we keep the really good quality paper separate we get so much more money for it. So I think that’s one of the things that has been most successful in South Cambs., the actual keeping of paper separate. Although in the green it can be recovered, it’s very cheap in just bulk. We reckon it’s about another £200,000 a year is possible from keeping the paper separate.
PAUL STAINTON: What do you make to this comment from David Harvey. who said, “The councils should do it all. It shouldn’t be up to individuals. Why? Because it’s more cost-effective. Bulk separation is cheaper than us doing it, creates more jobs. Most importantly saves water. Cleaning yoghurt pots etcetera we end up spending all that money on excess water.” So it should be up to councils to do all the separating, and we’ll leave you to it.
RAY MANNING: Well yes, obviously that’s a way of looking at things. But quite honestly I can’t agree with that. It takes, what, a couple of spoonfuls of water to rinse out a pot and have it done and things like that. If it’s already partially sorted it means it’s far easier at the other end. Yes, you could go back to a system of all black and then trying to sort it out, but your earlier speaker was saying about how you get things perhaps contaminated with nappies and stuff like this. Surely it is better to have a system whereby it’s roughly sorted beforehand.
PAUL STAINTON: Of course one part of Cambridgeshire where rules around recycling have recently changed is Peterborough, where the City Council has decided to charge people to have their brown garden waste bins collected. A lot of people very unhappy with that. Richard Olive is a member of Peterborough Friends of the Earth. Is that a good move from Peterborough City Council Richard in your opinion? .. Is Peterborough wise to do what it’s done? Continue reading “Richard Olive and Ray Manning on Recycling in Cambridgeshire”
