Agenda item

1.

Question from Councillor Hall to the Cabinet Member Sustainability

Please can you tell me how many Bags for Green waste collection were sold to the public in the years 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, and what month in 2010 did sales stop?

Response from Cabinet Member Sustainability

7,843 garden waste bags were sold in 2009/10 and 7,461 in 2010/11. Following the decision in July 2010 to change to wheeled bins all potential purchasers were made aware that they would not receive a bag collection with effect from February 2011. Many chose to purchase the bags anyway as they are useful around the garden and to transport garden waste to the Swindon Road recycling centre which remains free of charge.

In a supplementary question Councillor Hall queried how the new green waste scheme could improve levels of recycling when the previous bag scheme had allowed residents 6 bags per fortnight and yet under the new scheme, the brown bin would only accommodate 2 bags worth of waste.

The Cabinet Member felt that the parameters of the old scheme were being inflated and no more than 4 bags were collected fortnightly from each property.  Larger properties requiring another brown bin would be provided with one upon request and the new scheme did deliver improvements.

2.

Question from Councillor Surgenor to the Cabinet Member Sustainability

I would like to ask the Cabinet Member Sustainability if CBC were consulted by the County Council about the planned Waste Incinerator?

Response from Cabinet Member Sustainability

The amount of information made available by GCC, and the nature of the questions would not have enabled a meaningful or quantifiable Council answer, beyond some comments on transport distances. These comments were incorporated in a letter from myself to the County Council, which I am happy to make available. CBC was consulted but did not therefore reply formally.

I am very concerned about the implications of installing a Waste incinerator in the Severn Vale, as I know are many members, and others. We are concerned about:

a) implications for public health resulting from the landfilling of toxic ash which is a 25% fraction of the waste incinerated

b) the very high likely capital cost and long payback, details of which are filtering through, and the effects on the taxpayer, particularly if estimates prove to be a bit wide of the mark, and the likely difficulties of maintaining an economic level of feedstock should the county’s declared recycling targets be reached or exceeded. In the limit the incinerator could become a £500m white elephant by 2030.

c) the fact that incineration is a poor solution in environmental terms, particularly energy efficiency in the widest sense and effect on carbon footprint.

In a supplementary question, Councillor Surgenor queried whether it were possible for the Leader to request more information, including figures which to date the County Council had not made public.

Though the original question had not been directed at the Leader, he was happy to take the relevant steps to securing more information from the County Council.