I'm afraid Steven Moore, Service Director for Environment and Leisure at Bristol City Council, misses the point in his letter ('We're pround of recycling achievements', Open Lines, Jan 31). Is he proud of the fact that over 7000 tonnes of recycling was shipped to Belgium for processing, reducing some of the environmental advantage gained? Is this the best green practice we can expect from an aspiring 'green capital'? Surely we need to move on from the undoubted step in the right direction made in recent years, to make further recycling improvements - a green city is still a very long way off - and abandon waste incineration plans which make recycling improvements harder?He talked proudly of the council's collection of food waste for composting. Is he proud of the fact that we've spent years sending the material all the way to Dorset in lorries because we didn't plan ahead and establish a local composting facility to coincide with the introduction of the brown bin scheme?? His own figures show that waste for composting travels 233,000 lorry miles every year, reducing some of the environmental gains made.
Glenn
ReplyDeleteYou may criticise Bristol City Council's Director of Paperclip Shuffling for exporting our crap all over the place, but remember, Bristol is/was a port and has been exporting stuff for centuries ;-)
Perhaps Bristol should export all the overpaid and overpowerful senior officers?! (Along with quite a few politicians).
ReplyDeleteIts no wonder that carbon emissions are ten times the sustainable level given that ports like Bristol have been exporting (and of course importing!) in mass quantities for a long period. They look set to try to carry on with unsustainable habits despite the economic and environmental evidence.
We need to be rid of the unsustainable habits by planned choice - sooner or later such change will be forced upon us anyway!
"We need to be rid of the unsustainable habits by planned choice - sooner or later such change will be forced upon us anyway!
ReplyDelete"
Agreed! A few Tellytubby-style windmills down at Avonmouth and a flawed recycling scheme aren't really going to make that much difference.