Be more ambitious on re-cycling, Council told

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 11th Oct 2004

Councillor John Cole is calling on the Council to be more ambitious in its aims for re-cycling plastic. In response to a report going to the Environment Improvement Commission he said:

"This Council is too cautious and not ambitious or enthusiastic about re-cycling and this is especially true of plastic.

"I will be telling the Improvement Commission that:

• The Government should be pressed to set a target for plastic recycling which does not depend on a weight criteria. If they don't, plastic is so light that it will never become a priority. Yet it takes up a huge amount of space, uses up valuable resources in manufacture, and hangs around for years if it is dumped;

• The number of bring sites with plastic collections in Bradford should be increased;

• The Council won't collect plastic tubs because some people don't wash them out. But no instructions were put on the Baildon bins, there are no instructions on the skips at the bring sites and the leaflet sent to the trail area in Eccleshill mentions only plastic bottles and does not say that yoghurt pots and margarine tubs can by recycled if they are washed first;

• When we do increase the amount of plastic we re-cycle, I want an assurance that it is processed in the UK.

"If it is exported to the Third World or China I want to be sure that the re-cycling plants are not producing local pollution and that the workers in those plants are treated properly and paid fairly."