Eric Pickles. FB for Brentwood and Ongar.
I was interested to hear that in the hard times we live in, when schools can't afford books and hospitals leave people to die on trolleys that Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, has earmarked £250 million pounds for that one priority that stands over all others - the weekly collection of rubbish.
Pickles seems to be the only one who wants this, so why has he been allowed to spend so much public money on restoring what no-one either wants or needs?
It is interesting that Pickles, so critical of wastefulness in government, seems to be bending over backwards to encourage householders to waste as much as they possibly can. Indeed the Government's own research suggests that the policy could result in an additional 1.5 million tonnes of waste being sent to landfill every year.
So called "fortnightly collections" are now carried out by around half of English councils. This not only saves money, cuts the carbon footprint of the collections and raises revenue for local councils but also encourages people to recycle a lot more. The problem of bins becoming smelly over a fortnight has been addressed by somewhere around one quarter of those on fortnightly collections by a separate weekly collection of food waste. This method is recommended by WRAP, the government agency responsible for recycling.
Mr Pickles says be believes that: "every household in England has a basic right to have their rubbish collected every week."
But Julian Kirby, the Friends of the Earth's waste campaigner, said: "A return to weekly bin collections is an astonishing waste of taxpayers' money and will have a disastrous impact on recycling." So what do the public think? Pickles is on record stating that fortnightly collections are "unpopular and unhygienic". Recycling specialists May Gurney, who run many local authority contracts, recently carried out a survey to see which local authority services people most value and those which they would most like to see changed. Refuse and recycling services were named as the most important council service by 44% of respondents - more than any other answer. Only 13% thought this area needed improving. So the government line does not appear to follow what the public want, as support for recycling is in fact very high.
However, reading between the lines, it seems Mr Pickles could have shot himself in the foot. Pickles provides the finances for local councils but it is Caroline Spelman who is responsible for recycling policy. According to the Daily Mail (no fan of recycling it has to be said) she is indeed earmarking the £250 million for weekly collections, but for smelly waste only. That means food waste and that as I pointed out earlier is the correct way forward.
Pickles hates food waste collections calling the caddies "slop buckets". We have made several million such caddies, proudly produced in the UK from recycled plastics creating jobs and value for our shareholders. As the Prime Minister told me himself earlier this year, "they are not slop buckets". We all know this, Daily Mail readers excepted.
So it seems Mr Pickles is out of step with his boss, his voters and the environmental lobby. But having got his grubby hands on a cool £1/4 billion, it could well be that it is all going to be recycled into more food waste collections after all. Nice one Eric!
