Why the Council won't recycling plastic

10.34.28am UTC (GMT +0000) Mon 9th Oct 2006

Cllr David Ward with a typical heap of plastic waste

Bradford North Area Committee has come out strongly in favour of recycling plastic.

Cllr David Ward said,

" All the evidence is that people want to recycle plastic because it makes up 10% of their rubbish. It is now clear that the Council have their own reasons for not providing this service.

I was amazed to discover that the Council's reason for not recycling plastic is to do with long term plans for heat treatment of waste. If plastic is not recycled but left in the waste, it has a higher calorific value and burns better!

The Liberal Democrats on the North Area Committee agreed that burning plastic is equivalent to burning the fossil fuels from which plastic is made. We want plastic to be collected and recycled.

The Government is also implicated because they favour incineration and set targets for the recycling of biodegradable material like paper and garden waste but not for plastic.

The North Committee has asked the Environment and Waste Management Improvement Committee to take plastic recycling seriously and find a way to enable people to do it."