How Green actually is Brighton and Hove?

[The Large One]

How big a part of being a Green City is recycling policy? Personally I'd say transport policy for one would be a bigger issue (not sure how B&H does here).

We've got a decent, though sadly bloody expensive bus system.

Similarly, car parking in the city is very expensive. When the Conservatives got power in the city for the first time a couple of years ago, one of the first things they wanted to do was drop car parking prices in places where they had the power to do so. For whatever reason (and thankfully), they didn't.

The City Council's principle problem - whichever party is in power - and one which by its own admission is dropping down the agenda, is finding a workable park & ride system.

 

[beorhthelm]

We have a Conservative-led council that doesn't take re-cycling too seriously.

i dont think party politics comes into it. Conservative Wealden is very pro-recycling, while i've just come from Liberal Sutton where there was none.

Bit of a ridiculous comment. How hard is it to separate glass from all the rest?

it starts there. then you have to seperate paper, then paper two ways, and then tins/plastic another but not juice bottles and aerosols. i have 5 "bins":

• general,
• compostable (including brown paper, card),
• box for "white" paper (include junk mail),
• sack for cans and plastic bottles.
• glass. not actually collected, i have to take that to the recycle point myself.

i agree with the principle and its no bother for me to take bottles when i go shopping and its something we did 20-30 year ago anyway. but frankly its a bit of a chore and often thinks just get thrown in the general because one is in a rush/doesnt stop to think. they're taking it too far and over complicating it. i heard that there is so much contamination of home "sorted" recycling materials that plants setup to deal with it are having to refuse it, so it just ends up in land fill anyway.

apparently there is now less glass and cans recycled in the country than 20 years ago. general waste, washed empty containers and paper, thats how it should be split, then sorted at depots. add encouragement to do bottles ourselves. any more than 3 is a hinderance.

Sorry, you're going to have to explain that one.

Her family lives in Belgium, she commutes to London by Eurostar. i dare say she get the train down to Brighton for surgery.

 

[The Large One]

Her family lives in Belgium, she commutes to London by Eurostar. i dare say she get the train down to Brighton for surgery.

She lives in Brighton, and has done since she became MP.

 

[sten_super]

You find putting glass in a seperate box to everything else "inanely complicated"?

I actually think the current system that we have in Cambridge (detailed in a previous post) is very straightforward. However there have undoubtedly been inanely complicated schemes in the past. The previous scheme involved a black box and a blue box, which had different recyclable items and were collected on different days. That may not sound too complicated to you and me, but speaking to my elderly neighbours they definitely did find it confusing. Anything that requires having to look at a timetable to work out what is being recycled is too complicated, IMHO.

 

[8ace]

We've got a decent, though sadly bloody expensive bus system.

Similarly, car parking in the city is very expensive. When the Conservatives got power in the city for the first time a couple of years ago, one of the first things they wanted to do was drop car parking prices in places where they had the power to do so. For whatever reason (and thankfully), they didn't.

The City Council's principle problem - whichever party is in power - and one which by its own admission is dropping down the agenda, is finding a workable park & ride system.

How does the policy towards cycling measure up?

Her family lives in Belgium, she commutes to London by Eurostar. i dare say she get the train down to Brighton for surgery.

She had to give up her job as a euro mp when she stormed to victory in Brighton Pavillion last year.

 

[Peter Grummit]

Come May 5th the Tories will be out and then will be the test of recycling policy. You never know a hopeful side effect might be HB+B b#ggering off to Burgess Hill where he belongs where he can pursue his version of community through leylandii planting.

PG

 

[The Large One]

Come May 5th the Tories will be out and then will be the test of recycling policy. You never know a hopeful side effect might be HB+B b#ggering off to Burgess Hill where he belongs where he can pursue his version of community through leylandii planting.

PG

Can't see the Tories losing control of BHCC (well, maybe little), principally because I don't think that the Greens or Labour will make enough in-roads into Hove / Patcham / Rottingdean etc.

But then, I thought that the Tories would finish second in Brighton Pavilion in the GE last year...

 

[Trufflehound]

Eastleigh Borough here have been right at the top of the recycling tables for many years.

People here have FIVE bins!

Black wheelie; general rubbish - collected fortnightly
Green wheelie; cardboard, plastics, etc - collected fortnightly
Black plastic box: glass - collected monthly
Big green bag; garden waste - collected weekly (this is optional, and costs about 40p a week)
Brown plastic box (with lid): food waste -collected weekly (optional, but free)

Just out of interest, why do they make you keep garden and food waste separate? All ours goes in one green wheelie bin and ends up on the municipal compost heap...

 

[hans kraay fan club]

Just out of interest, why do they make you keep garden and food waste separate? All ours goes in one green wheelie bin and ends up on the municipal compost heap...

I'm not entirely sure, as we don't do the optional food waste one, but I think the garden waste goes to compost, and possibly the food waste goes to feed pigs. Possibly.

 

[8ace]

Just out of interest, why do they make you keep garden and food waste separate? All ours goes in one green wheelie bin and ends up on the municipal compost heap...

Food attracts rats but they are not interested in garden waste.

 

[Trufflehound]

Food attracts rats but they are not interested in garden waste.

That would make sense. I guess our council either doesn't care, or has an army of cats on site.

 

[Garry Nelson's Left Foot]

Over here we don't get the luxury of having numerous bins to put everything in. Instead there are designated collection areas (typically street corners) where people can leve their rubbish. Burnable is collected twice a week, unburnable once a week and recyclables once a week. The night before recyclables are collected several differently coloured boxes are left out in the collection area. Each colour corresponds to a different form of recyclabe material-glass, plastic bottles etc. If you have any large sized rubbish- chairs, tables, drawers etc you have to phone up the local waste collection company and arrange a day for them to come round and pick it up. The same is true for electrical equipment such as computers and televisions. It's all fairly simple and straight forward.

I think it's fair to say that Tokyo is a bigger and more densely populated city than Brighton so if it can be done here, there shouldn't be any excuse for Brighton not doing it. If it's not being done I guess it must be down to a lack of will on behalf of the councils(unless budgets are tiny).

 

[brunswick]

the "green" thing in UK cities is PR, and a scam.

much recycling ends up in landfill anyway - it is so people feel they are doing their bit.

a city near on the sea where shit goes out to sea cannot be looked at as "green" in any way.

 

[8ace]

That would make sense. I guess our council either doesn't care, or has an army of cats on site.

Maybe they bung it in an anaerobic digester - but I like the army of cats idea.

 

[beorhthelm]

a city near on the sea where shit goes out to sea cannot be looked at as "green" in any way.

apparently all sewerage from the town is pumped down to a treatment works in Peachaven. theres a massive storm drain overflow, of such size that has never been filled. so any turds on the Brighton coastline are either "beach deposits" or from further down the coast. though you'd think they all have suitable treatment works too. i wonder if theres not a little amount of myth about raw sewage in the water. it looks pretty scummy with various debris and chemical laden runoff water, but where is the source of all that?

 

[fataddick]

Eastleigh Borough here have been right at the top of the recycling tables for many years.

People here have FIVE bins!

Can beat that. Where my mum lives (Runnymede in Surrey) as of two months ago now has NINE different bins per household:

Runnymede Portal > New kerbside collection

The recycling guide looks the complicatedest thing in the world and it takes her HOURS to separate out the stuff.

http://www.runnymede.gov.uk/portal/binary/com.epicentric.contentmanagement.servlet.ContentDeliveryServlet/Recycling/Kerbside_collection/recycle_runnymede_leaflet.pdf

Thank God for central Brighton and the hassle-free communal bins. Though I can see the Greens winning the council this May (hoovering up most of the disgruntled Lib Dem voters), and I imagine a more serious recycling programme would follow...

 

[Shanker45]

The disappointing thing for me is the lack of a consistent approach/policy by the councils. Yes, a lot of the better recycling schemes can be expensive to manage from the council's perspective but as a country we urgently need to tackle the "waste issue". My understanding is ( wait to be corrected!) that as a country we only have 7 years left of landfil - not long. Why can't we come up with a nationwide scheme that caters for all scenarios ( rural,village, town,city location etc..)? Currently there is too much confusion and many householders just don't understand what can be recycled and composted from their weekly waste.

 

[8ace]

The disappointing thing for me is the lack of a consistent approach/policy by the councils. Yes, a lot of the better recycling schemes can be expensive to manage from the council's perspective but as a country we urgently need to tackle the "waste issue". My understanding is ( wait to be corrected!) that as a country we only have 7 years left of landfil - not long. Why can't we come up with a nationwide scheme that caters for all scenarios ( rural,village, town,city location etc..)? Currently there is too much confusion and many householders just don't understand what can be recycled and composted from their weekly waste.

Part of the problem is the amount of landfill available to different councils, some have none so have to recycle / burn everything, whilst some have a lot more. I'm guessing it makes sense to fill an existing landfill site up rather than close it when half empty

 

[beorhthelm]

Why can't we come up with a nationwide scheme that caters for all scenarios ( rural,village, town,city location etc..)?

they cant even come up with a London wide policy, and thats with the central mayor. too much politics, too much clinging on to budgets. "if its national, then it needs to come from national/general taxation", they'll say (ignoring the grant they get...). the Treasuray would chuckle to itself, then tell them its fine if they cut their grant accordingly. so we get left to carry the burden of disorganised and inconsistant policy implementation. if they have to recycle x% (which i believe they must or face fines) then there needs to be remedies as to how.

 

[Acker79]

it starts there. then you have to seperate paper, then paper two ways, and then tins/plastic another but not juice bottles and aerosols.

It's gone the other way for me. When we got our new calender this year listing collection dates it said I no longer need to separate everything, just glass and batteries. The rest (paper, cardboard, tins, plastic, etc) can all go in together and they will sort it at the recycling centre. They also mentioned that they now accept aerosol cans (with the caps taken off).



Also, I seem to recall Magpie offer a lot of recycling services for things that the council don't (tetrapaks, margerine tubs and those sorts of plastics, tin foil, oil etc)