Nottingham City Council Recycling .. .... Bottom of the Class again!

When I've emailed Howard Morris and John Taylor, my councillors in berridge ward, it seems they can't even bother to respond. Now maybe if everyone emailed them.....

Nottingham talks about being a leading council taking action to tackle climate change but if after 20 years of recycling being an issue they can't even sort that out, what hope do we have.

I would say vote the useless, inefficent, incompetant idiots out of office but who would we have instead. Maybe we all need to be harder bosses on this shower and get them to do their jobs properly

Paul,

In May all of the City's councillors are up for re-ellection, its amazing how all of a sudden they start listening and paying attension!

Why not write to the Evening Post and ask why the City has such a pathetic recyling rate and why don't councillors respond to your letters?

Email your letter to the addrss below, quoting your name and full postal address.

letters& poems@nottinghameveningpost.co.uk

Labour Party did a door-to-door newletter drop last week called 'Labour - Positively working for Nottingham'
where City Council leader Jon Collins is quoted saying:

"Recycling in Nottingham is growing at a fast rate, we are now in the top 3 of the UK's top Cities"

Where does this figure come from? At least I currently have no doorstep recycling to dispose of this propaganda.

Jon Collins and the Labour group are obviously either lying or fudging their figures.

To see the league table, putting Nottingham City Council combined recycling and composting rate at 339 out of 393, check it out at;

www.letsrecycle.com/info/localauth/league/2005ranked.jsp

Here in Sneinton we have been pushing local decision makers to get us proper recycling but they say we can't get it until 2009 or something. There is no cardboard recycling and the only place to take the recycling is at Kwik Save, Sneinton Hermatige. Interestingly enough, the bins, especially the ones for the cans are nearly always overly full. This shows that residents want to recycle, but are just not given the resources to do so properly. The council has a mounth-full of how good it is on recycling but doesn't provide us with the facilities to do so, even after having been from meeting to meeting for months asking them for it. Where's the will to really sort this out?

Not only can they not be bothered to recycle, but they also produce tons of waste. For example, have you considered how much stuff gets sent to libraries which is never used, and then gets thrown away (hopefully recycled, can we be sure?): e.g. newspapers, leaflets, magazines, brochures, prospectuses and "Living for Tomorrow", the environmental magazine. Why does fifty times more stuff get distributed than is ever used? And libraries leave their computers etc on all night, weekend, too. What about other council offices? The City is happy to pretend to be green while lurching happily ever further into into climate chaos. Tell them what we think!

When I went to a city council propaganda meeting on climate change a few months back I asked the council if they could commit to using recycled paper only for their leaflets etc. My question was kind of put aside not answered to properly. The city council is the biggest employer in the city and uses a huge amount of paper each year. There really would be not much to change for them to use recycled paper. It might cost slightly more, but surely with the supposed committment to leading the way in tackling climate change, the council can take this burden upon itself.

I am going to write to the heads of all parties within the council to get this issue moved forward. In my opinion its ridiculous, if we're unable to change in a small way like this than we can surely forget about tackling a global climate catastrophe.

i contacted the council about local recycling provisions in radford when we moved here in september and they never got back to me, after various phone calls in january i managed to establish that there is no recycling offered in this area at all by the council. our house didnt qualify for a garden waste bin either despite the fact that we have a large garden. this is all disgusting, everybody i've met wants to recycle but its not being made possible for a large majority of people. although in our area is the asbo community centre which provides for the local area with a recycling box outside, we've been walking down and leaving everything bagged up individually here.

We at the ASBO centre initilally decided to provide a recycling point as part of our philosophy of providing facillities and services that the council is too lazy to bother with. Thanks largely to thursday's storms, our recycling point is currently indisposed but we are hoping to rebuild it as part of our new year renovations.

Whilst we are happy to provide recycling facillities, please note that we do not have access to a vehicle and at present all the recycling we collect is taken to collection points by hand (not an easy or particularly pleasant task). If anyone would like to help us with our recycling facillity please get in touch and help us make sure we can maintain something which has proved very popular with local residents.

Peace
Jack at the ASBO centre (re-opening soon!)

We have a group in Nottingham called Nottingham Freecycle. We are part of the larger grassroots organisation called Freecycle which was set up in Tuscon Arizona. Our aim is to reduce our landfils and have groups all across the world helping with this.

We now have almost 4000 members on the Nottingham list who, instead of taking items to landfil, offer them on the list to anyone who wants them.

How it works:

You have an item you no longer want, you put an offer up on the list advertising this item. Anyone who is interested then emails you and asks you for that item. Whoever you choose out of those emails you mail back and they come to your house and collect it... FREE OF CHARGE.

No money exchanges hands and our landfils are saved from yet another dumping session.

If you would like to see what we are about take a look on our website which is  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nottingham_freecycle/

Thanks for reading and lets hope we can minimize what does end up on our landfils !!!

Paula
Nottingham Freecycle List Owner

Thanks for the debate on this. Shame about the abuse but then as a politician I suppose I'll just have to accept it.

First to the figures. The DEFRA figures quoted are almost a year out of date. Our latest recycling figures are 21-22% - Not fantastic but better than or equal to all but one of the other 8 biggest Cities in the Country. They have similar problems and issues as us in rolling out recycling and therefore I would suggest it is a reasonable comparison to make. We also send far less to landfill than most other local authorities and overall are managing to limit the growth in domestic waste quite effectively.

For the future we will continue to increase the amount of kerbside recycling and have plans to spend a further £850,000 doing so over the next financial year. Labour's manifesto will probably include a commitment to double the rate of recycling in the City over the next 4 years. (I say probably because being a local democratic party, is hasn't been finally adopted yet).

Of course we could have spent more on recycling earlier and that might also have made a difference to our current recycling rate. However, at the time we were spending millions extra on education to tackle performance in schools (GCSE's up from 26% of pupils getting 5+ A-C's in 1998 to 45% this year) and on tackling crime and anti-social behaviour (recorded offences down from 75,000 in 2003 to less than 60,000 a year now). Council's never have enough money to do everything at the same time and right or wrong, those were our priorities. Now better recycling and tackling climate change are priorities we can allocate extra resources too and that is what we are doing.

Why don't we draw comparisons with other local authorities? Because many don't have the kind of issues we have in rolling it out. Rushcliffe (often quoted) is a rich, small district council serving mainly middle class people in houses with room to store the bins and boxes necessary for recycling. Their residents are both inclined to recycle and have the space to do it. As a council they also have no responsibility for disposing of their waste and simply have to deliver it to the County Council. Whether the sorted material is then actually recycled is not an issue for them and in similar circumstances elsewhere, sorted material simply then goes to landfill. I don't know whether that happens in Rushcliffe but it certainly happens in some authorities where there are nominally high recycling rates. It doesn't happen in Nottingham.

Nottingham struggles with a mix of properties and circumstances that make recycling difficult. Terraced houses where bins are left on the street and so extra recycling bins are probably impractical. Flats, where extra bins and alternate collections would also be a challenge and in many communities, families who just refuse to participate. And if you don't believe me on that one, take a walk around the Council estates at the top end of Sneinton some time on bin day.

Of course none of that is a reason for not recycling. But it is a reason why it is more of a challenge in big cities like Nottingham than in smaller cities like Derby of small affluent districts like Rushcliffe.

Finally, how about finishing the debate with a positive? We're open to suggestion on how best to deliver recycling in the kinds of areas I've mentioned and readers can come up with some good ideas then there's still time to get them in our manifesto.

Jon Collins

(Leader, Nottingham City Council)

ps if anyone wants to vote me our I'm standing in St Anns ward.

"When I went to a city council propaganda meeting on climate change a few months back I asked the council if they could commit to using recycled paper only for their leaflets etc. My question was kind of put aside not answered to properly. ... I am going to write to the heads of all parties within the council to get this issue moved forward."

I was there, and Cllr Edwards treated you in a terribly patronising way. The general attitude was "how dare you question me/us". The correct way to respond would have been to explain how much of the council's paperwork *is* on recycled paper. I bet it's more than you think, because some of the people within the organisation have been working away at this for a long time. But you have the right approach: dealing with climate change will involve the sum of many small actions like this as well as the grand schemes the council presented.

Thanks for the debate on this. Shame about the abuse but then as a politician I suppose I deserve it.

First to the figures. We can fudge them anyway we want. Our latest recycling figures are 21-22% - Pretty appalling but better than or equal to all but one of the other 8 biggest Cities in the Country (which also have terrible recycling rates). They have a similar lack of enthusaiasm as us in rolling out recycling and therefore I would suggest it is a reasonable comparison to make. We also send far less to landfill than most other local authorities and overall are managing to limit the growth in domestic waste quite effectively - by burning it all and sending toxic ash and smoke over the city.

For the future we will continue to increase the amount of kerbside recycling (not hard really, it's virtually non-existent at the moment) and have plans to spend a further £850,000 doing so over the next financial year. We would have spent more but we wasted it all on the new Market Square vanity project, just like other corrupt regimes the world over. The Belaboured manifesto will probably include a commitment to double the rate of taxpayer's money it spends on covert party political propaganda masked as 'Public Information' in the City over the next 4 years. (I say probably because being a autocratic capitalist party, it hasn't had the go ahead of the business elite yet).

Of course we could have spent more on recycling earlier and that might also have made a difference to our current recycling rate. However, at the time we were spending millions extra on education to force kids through ridiculous hoops in schools (GCSE's up from 26% of pupils getting 5+ A-C's in 1998 to 45% this year) and on demonising youths, the homeless and non-conformists (recorded offences down from 75,000 in 2003 to less than 60,000 a year now). Councils never have enough money to control everyone at the same time and right or wrong, this was our priority. Now better recycling and tackling climate change are in the papers we have to make it look like we're doing something whilst we're actually making the rich richer, and the Belaboured party are pretty good at that.

Why don't we draw comparisons with other local authorities? Because you'll realise we're even worse than the rest of them. Rushcliffe (often quoted) is already run by the the rich, so it's faster turning their opinions into policy. Their residents are both inclined to recycle and have the space to do it, unlike the chavs you get in the city. As a council they also have no access to a handy local incinerator to burn the evidence. Whether the sorted material is then actually recycled is not an issue for them and in similar circumstances elsewhere, sorted material simply then goes to landfill. This is because, like Nottingham, most councils are lying bastards. I don't know whether that happens in Rushcliffe but it certainly happens in some authorities where there are nominally high recycling rates. It doesn't happen in Nottingham because we're not even pretending that we recycle.

Nottingham struggles with a mix of properties and circumstances that make recycling difficult. The biggest problem is that the few council provided bins aren't emptied frequently enough and are very limited in the materials they accept. Also, terraced houses where bins are left on the street and so extra recycling bins are probably impractical. Flats, where extra bins and alternate collections would also be a challenge and in many communities, families who just refuse to participate. Nottingham City Council proposes to end all of this by imposing Asbos on anyone unwilling to recycle with prison sentences for persistent offenders. In order to deal with the problem of inappropriate housing we're going to demolish St Anns and forcibly evict the residents, after which we'll sell the land to property developers who'll make a fast buck and invite us along to a few free dinners. And if you don't believe me on that one, take a walk around the Council estates at the top end of Sneinton some time on bin day. People really are awful left to their own devices. That's why we need a strong council to force them to do what we want.

Of course none of that is a reason for not recycling. But it is a reason why it is more of a challenge for lazy councils like Nottingham's.

Finally, how about finishing the debate with a positive? We're open to suggestion on how best to deliver recycling in the kinds of areas I've mentioned, even though you haven't got a hope in hell of actually changing the underlying environmentally destructive structure of local government. Please give us your names and addresses so we know where to find you.

Collin Jons

(Leader, Nottingham Bureau of Social Control)

PS If anyone wants to have a go, I'm standing in St Anns ward. Come on if you think you're hard enough you hippy wankers!

Perhaps as important as how much Nottingham (or anywhere else) recycles is the question how things are recycled. In a world threatened with oil and gas depletion and climate change the most efficient processes are needed to get the most value out of waste. If you pardon the pun incineration is a highly wasteful way of using waste. Much better would be if the city council were to promote and support the processing of waste through biorefineries.

These are analogous to oil refineries. They obtain saleable products from the chemical constituents of biomass. The biomass is ideally of low value, abundant andcomposed mainly of lignocellulose (carbohydrate and lignin). [i.e. not sugar/starch feedstocks].

Biorefineries have flexibility in processing many feedstocks - including municipal wastes, sewage sludge, C and D wood (scrap wood), waste paper and cardboard, forest thinnings, agricultural residues and energy crops. Obviously it is the first in this list that have the least cost in relation to supply.


In essence Biorefineries break down the polymers in biomass like cellulose, hemicellulose and lignin by hydrolysis into more valuable components - using acids, enzymes of thermochemical procedures. (A polymer is a compounds of usually high molecular weight and consisting of up to millions of repeated linked units, each a relatively light and simple molecule.)

The process is two stage and the products are speciality chemicals, commodity chemicals, herbicides, pesticides
automotive fuels and energy fuels. (not that one necessarily wants pesticides and herbicides).

The recognition for the value of these processes can be found in some unusual places...

The United States Environmental Protection Agency has -Awarded Biofine Inc its Federal ‘Presidential Green Chemistry Award’ Outstanding Green Chemical Technology.

Shell Global have described Biofine as a world leading green technology and will secure significant quantities of the end product.

A three year due diligence on the technology has just completed in which they processed various feedstocks at the Upstate New York plant and used the end
product to run car trials in the UK.

United States Senate have included Biofine Technology in the Energy Bill currently being debated as an approved technology to compete with ethanol technologies for Federal funding.

A commercial 300 tpd plant has been developed in Caserta, Italy
(processing waste paper) and is anticipated to be complete by end of 2005.

For more details:

 http://internal.ifaskillnet.ie/pdfs/TheBiofineProcess.pdf

and

 http://www.seas.columbia.edu/earth/wtert/meet2003/wtert-2003_paul.pdf

It would be nice to see Nottingham City Council exploring this option for processing waste.

NAIL joins National Fight Against Incinerators
NAIL (Nottingham Against Incineration and Landfill) campaigners who successfully opposed plans to expand Nottingham’s Eastcroft incinerator, have joined a national coalition of community groups.
Communities all across the UK are coming together today to join forces against incineration. Representatives of 25 community groups are meeting to form a national Anti-Incineration Network to actively support each other campaigning against waste incineration.
These groups are all campaigning to encourage local councils to look at clean and green ways of dealing with waste rather than building large, polluting incinerators. The groups are worried that the Government is actually encouraging local councils to build incinerators, ignoring the wishes of local communities. The network is aware of proposals for 30 new incinerators across the UK, which would more than double the current number [1]

Jon Beresford local campaign group said
“ This network will be an incredible resource for any community group fighting waste incineration. People in Nottingham, like people right across the country, do not want incinerators. Incinerator contracts work against rising recycling rates and inevitably result in resources being wasted. Councils should have policies for encouraging households to reduce and minimise wastes. Campaigners can join together to insist that their discarded materials are recycled and composted wherever possible.”

The network has already tried to engage the Secretary of State for the Environment, David Miliband, in an exchange of views over the environmental and social problems of incineration but his department has been unwilling to address the arguments and evidence put to them by the network.

The formation of the network is supported by Friends of the Earth. Anna Watson Waste Campaigner at Friends of the Earth said:

“Local councils and the Government are trying to sell incinerators to the British public as sources of green energy yet this is nothing more then a cynical exercise in spin. Recycling saves more energy than is created by burning waste, and incinerators produce more fossil fuel derived carbon dioxide than gas fired power stations. Local communities though have the answers on how to deal with waste and it is time that the Government and local authorities paid attention to their solutions.”

To get in contact with the national network contact Anna Watson on  anna.watson@foe.co.uk
For further Information contact;
NAIL Jon Beresford (M) 07738 604672
www.nail.uk.net



NOTES
[1] Proposed Incinerators in UK


East Peterborough
East Ipswich, Suffolk
East Midlands Rainworth, Nottinghamshire
East Midlands Derby, Derbyshire
East Midlands Estcroft Nottingham (100,oo tonne expansion)
London Belvedere, Bexley – planning permission given 06
London Dagenham – planning permission given 06
North East Newcastle
North West Ellesmere Port, Cheshire – rejected going to Public Inquiry
North West Runcorn, Cheshire
North West Barrow in Furness, Cumbria
South East Oxfordshire
South East Newhaven, East Sussex – permission been given 07
South East Surrey
South East Capel, Surrey
South East Medway, Kent
South East East Kent – looking at sites
South West Cornwall – contract signed
South West 2 – 3 sites, Devon – one definite site in Exeter
South West Bristol – contract signed
South West West of England Partnership (Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES), Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire)
E. Midlands Lincolnshire - potentially 2 incinerators
E. Midlands Corby, Northamptonshire
Yorkshire & the Humber Hull - near Marfleet – planning permission been given
Yorkshire & the Humber Leeds
Yorkshire & the Humber Bradford and Calderdale
Yorkshire & the Humber York or North Yorkshire
Scotland Aberdeen
Scotland Morayshire

Also, a substantial number of cement kilns throughout the UK plan to burn municipal waste as a subsitute fuel. This waste material is known as refuse-derived-fuel (RDF) or solid-recovered-fuel (SRF).