2nd August 2006

 
Photo: What a waste - Copyrighted photo reprinted here with permission of Seattle-based photographer Chris Jordan. See more photos

Eric Warde says Greens have it wrong over waste and that landfill has the same results as composting (Citizen, letters 25/07/06).

Infact compostable waste takes decades to break down in landfill; newspapers exhumed after 30 years remain perfectly legible. Landfill also means more climate changing methane emissions: estimates suggest composting, which by contrast seals in the carbon, would deliver 8.6 % of the EU carbon emissions reduction target. Composting can also reduce use of chemical fertilisers, destruction of precious peat bogs and worrying deterioration in our soils.

An astonishing one-third of the weight of the average UK household bin is waste food. We must end our throwaway society with its one-way flow from raw materials to landfill. We have a choice. A policy of low levels of recycling with incineration (an environmental and health no-no), or as Greens advocate, high levels of recycling and compost with a small remainder of waste for treatment.

We also need to reduce the waste produced. I resent paying in my Council tax for the disposal of vast quantities of supermarket packaging. When Greens in Germany shifted the responsibility of waste disposal onto the manufacturer; packaging use decreased by 17% - and rubbish collection bills went down. That makes economic and environmental sense. What a pity our government seems to have neither.

Cllr. Philip Booth (Green party)
Stroud District councillor for the Randwick, Ruscombe and Whiteshill ward