Green news
SO WE are now into recycling. This part of the parish has finally been told! The Recycling News has just arrived in my letterbox, together with other junk mail. Unlike the other mail this package contains a front sheet, printed at great expense on white
SO WE are now "into" recycling. This part of the parish has finally been told! The Recycling News has just arrived in my letterbox, together with other junk mail. Unlike the other mail this package contains a front sheet, printed at great expense on white paper, and a full-colour glossy page, the whole thing being neatly packed in a plastic bag.
I assume that this packaging etc is designed to get us to practice throwing different things into different bins. The plastic bag - can't see any recycling logo - into the black bin. The white paper address sheet into the green bin and the "news" into the brown bin (I rested my teacup on it and stained it!).
What useful and informative content: "rinse out containers" - with a water shortage, I don't think so! "Newspapers... are free" - not round here. "Printing or copying on both sides..." - what about sending out flyers with printing on one side sent by the council?
"Recycling reduces greenhouse gases" - not by as much as the cost of pumping water to rinse containers, electricity to power the recycling plants, the process of printing supplies to keep us informed, the CO2 costs for the manufacture of recycling bins and the extra journeys by the waste disposal trucks burning diesel fuel. All go to reduce the positive effect of our efforts.
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Finally, they have tried to baffle me with figures. Four-hundred and fifty tonnes equals 34 per cent, or is that 22 per cent, or 110 tonnes of wet plus 160 tonnes of dry? Give us all the figures not just the favourable ones, we can take it!
All in all, I feel that recycling is a good and necessary thing to do, but I wish the district council would be a bit more honest with us. If they don't reduce the amount of waste dumped, Essex County Council will fine us.
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Obviously the cost of wheelie bins, newsletters, the hotline and staff will be borne by us.
So start tackling recycling at source. At the supermarkets, at the plastic package producers, but mostly at this "throw away" society in which we live.
Chris Belton
Top Road
Wimbish
