Recycling plan thrown out by Labour and Conservatives (Bradford Liberal Democrats)

Bradford Liberal Democrats <info@bradfordlibdems.org.uk>

Recycling plan thrown out by Labour and Conservatives

February 25, 2009 1:44 PM

Cllr Ed Hall from Idle defends recycling

Lib Dem Councillor Ed Hall has reacted angrily to the decision of the Environment & Waste Management Improvement Committee to recommend a major change in the interim contract to build and operate a new autoclave facility to deal with 130,000 tonnes of domestic waste.

He said,

'The current terms and conditions of the contract put an 'absolute obligation' on the operator of the autoclave to recycle as much of the waste as they could. Now they want to change it to making their 'best endeavours' to recycle. This is far too weak and would make it very difficult for the council to challenge them if we believed that materials like plastic, cans and glass were not being sifted out and recycled. Bradford is particularly poor at recycling plastic and we know that people want to recycle more of it, not less."

Councillor David Ward, chair of the Bradford North Area Committee which covers the site of the proposed autoclave said,

" I am absolutely astonished that the Labour and Conservative members of committee meekly went along with this leaving Councillor Hall to defend recycling. This recommendation has been referred to the Executive and I challenge the Conservatives to stand by the obligation to recycling and not water it down.

I am especially angry about Bradford's failure to recycle anything other than plastic bottles. If other councils can do it, so can we. Plastic is a finite resource and we shouldn't allow it to be wasted. "