"The North London Waste Authority has made a very welcome tactical retreat on its plan for an unnecessary £100 million waste treatment plant at Pinkham Way.
"But the battle isn’t over. We need to convince Barnet’s Brian Coleman and the other dinosaurs who sit on the authority that it makes financial as well as environmental sense to focus on the wide potential for increased recycling, rather than to fritter £100 million on a giant rubbish-squashing machine.
 |
| Darren Johnson of the London Assembly, meets residents opposed to Pinkham Way |
"Most people, young and old, are well aware of the importance of reducing the amount of waste that we throw away. There is every reason to believe that recycling rates would jump immediately in Barnet and the other NLWA boroughs if they brought in the improved recycling systems that have already shown their effectiveness in other parts of England.
"Barnet’s recycling contractor May Gurney is confident it could lift Barnet’s recycling rate for household waste to 55 percent, from around 30 percent currently, if the borough adopted a system that the company runs successfully for a number of other councils, such as five councils in Somerset.
"Meanwhile, Haringey’s contractor Veolia has for example achieved a 50 percent recycling rate for Broadland council in Norfolk.
"All across Britain, recycling rates are rising and total household waste volumes are falling, and this has even been happening in North London, as the authority’s own figures show.
"In the three years to April 2010, municipal household ‘arisings’ in the NLWA area fell an average of 2.5 percent a year, but amazingly the authority’s plans for a massive plant at Pinkham Way are based on a projection of ‘arisings’ expanding at a rate of nearly 1 percent a year.
"Of course, May Gurney and Veolia or another contractor would want a bit more money for enlarging the local recycling operations, but that would be much more worthwhile than handing over £100 million of council taxpayers’ money for the ghastly Pinkham Way plant, which on current trends would be half redundant, as soon as it opened.
"Let’s reduce, re-use and recycle as much of our waste as possible to ensure that any new rubbish treatment plants that do have to be built can be small ones."
"Many thanks to the people who have contacted us following our plea for ideas for better 'reduction, re-use and recycling' of waste materials. We now have a list of 27, but any further suggestions would still be welcome, before we submit them to the NLWA. Send your thoughts to andrew.newby@barnetgreenparty.co.uk."
No comments:
Post a Comment