I’m asking you to support a council-run green waste collection in Brighton & Hove with a pledge.
As some have noticed from my blogs and press work, I’m passionate about waste and recycling. I want to see Brighton & Hove at the forefront of best practice, aiming for zero waste. Unfortunately at the moment this is not the case, the city’s draft waste strategy has us planning to come in under the national targets for recycling and composting.
The first small step in trying to turn that around is arguing for a green waste collection in our city. This is something many people have called for, including the Older People’s Council, who rightly argue that many don’t have space to home compost, don’t have a car to drive waste to a collection point and can’t afford private pick-ups on a regular basis.
Based on what other councils provide, I expect we can provide a collection for a fee of around £50 a year. This would mean only those needing the service pay, it wouldn’t be supported by council tax, thus ensuring those without gardens aren’t paying for a service they can’t use.
To help convince the powers that be that this can be done I’m calling on everyone who’d like to use this service to pledge that they will sign up if we get the collections launched. Please signup at pledgebank.com/greenwaste and spread the word. Pledgebank wouldn’t let me specify the full area covered by the city, but if you live in Portslade, Hove, Brighton, Kemptown or Rottingdean then you can sign up.
To provide some context on what’s happening elsewhere and add to the pressure on the Council administration, here are some links:
- Refuse, Recycling and Composting collection in Adur & Worthing [PDF]
- Very comprehensive collection, including composting in Guildford Borough
- Food waste collection in Richmond-upon-Thames, London
- Garden waste collection in Shropshire
- Mandatory composting law in San Francisco
- Municipal composting in Ottawa
- ‘Zero Waste’ approach in Nantucket
- Mandatory recycling & composting in South Korea (good links at bottom of post too)
- The key book on waste for me is Tristram Stuart’s “Waste”
Jason Kitcat 