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'Don't penalise'
I received my Vale of White Horse District Council tax information and read that the council had made savings on its brown bin compost collection service, not, as I had expected, by making economies or making it more efficient, but by charging extra to those people who believe in the value of recycling more waste and had volunteered to join the service and pay the extra premium for the fortnightly collection.
If only we could all make savings like that by getting others to pay more.
I understand that local authorities which fail to meet their recycling targets run the risk of having fines imposed upon them and these will fall upon all council taxpayers in that district.
I would have thought an authority would be eager to avoid such penalties and would encourage more people to take part in recycling. Instead, it chooses to impose a higher charge on those who subscribe to the brown bin scheme.
Many people, I know, also take their mixed plastics and drink cartons to recycling bins at various centres because the Vale's facilities for collecting plastics still cannot cope with the vast amount of plastic marked as recyclable but left behind if mistakenly put in the green box.
A number of people have told me that 'on principle' they do not subscribe to the brown bin service because they believe that its cost should be part of the Vale's overall responsibility for the collection of waste and they object to paying a surcharge while other residents still put much of their green and plastic waste into the household refuse sacks collected weekly and pay nothing extra.
Surely, if the VWHDC wants the public to help it to meet its recycling targets and avoid penalties, it should be encouraging more residents to recycle more waste, not penalise with a higher charge those who are conscientious enough about the need to recycle as much waste as possible to have taken on an extra part of the financial burden.
Jack Loftin
Charlton Village Road
Wantage
1:51pm Tuesday 6th May 2008
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