Green Party Leader on LBC

[Gwylan]

I've pretty much (silently) agreed with everything you've said on this thread, but I've got to take a slight issue with this one. Why couldn't they have done what the more environmentally-aware Tory councils did and introduce garden waste collections? I've only got a small garden but it generates a surprising amount of waste - and yes I compost. In the time when I didn't have a car all I could do was discreetly put it in the normal bin. I shall be car-less again soon so I shall have to go back to doing that.

It IS a pretty poor show when the one thing you'd think the Greens would be really good at they've been absolutely pissed on by Tories elsewhere in Sussex.

Yes, totally agree. I should have mentioned this as an option. I've actually just rung a waste collection company to take away about 30kg of wood that was some old decking we had. That's something that should be perfect for recycling but will just be dumped.

 

[Bold Seagull]

But as I've explained ALL councils have suffered the same cuts so the Greens are starting are on a level playing field money-wise with every other council. They are also starting with a very low base point because, as you rightly point out, we were 302nd when they took over so it should have been easy-peasy to implement some changes to move up that ladder and yet they still managed to make things worse. A Green council worse at recycling than practically every single Tory one. I think that's being pretty objective, don't you?

Not really, every council will have had a different starting point. You used Horsham as an example, while their starting point is higher, their recycling performance from 2012/13 to 2013/14 dropped -13.88% compared to Brighton who dropped -3.73%. Lewes as an example however does have a rise of 11.93% for the same period. Some of these councils have been run by the same administration for many election cycles and have secure majority control. So it really isn't that objective to be honest, not unless you present some serious context with it.

It might be that B&H's performance in recycling was in a steeper decline before they took over. It's dropped 4 points while they've been in, but what was it dropping before, what were the performance stats then? How can your assertion be objective without knowing all this?

 

[Buzzer]

Not really, every council will have had a different starting point. You used Horsham as an example, while their starting point is higher, their recycling performance from 2012/13 to 2013/14 dropped -13.88% compared to Brighton who dropped -3.73%. Lewes as an example however does have a rise of 11.93% for the same period. Some of these councils have been run by the same administration for many election cycles and have secure majority control. So it really isn't that objective to be honest, not unless you present some serious context with it.

It might be that B&H's performance in recycling was in a steeper decline before they took over. It's dropped 4 points while they've been in, but what was it dropping before, what were the performance stats then? How can your assertion be objective without knowing all this?

How about this then: different tables from a different website showing overall recycling rates over the past few years. Not sure why but this one has 352 different councils and Brighton dropping from 322 when the Greens took over to 327th.

http://www.letsrecycle.com/councils/league-tables/

How much more context do you want? I'm not sure all the context in the world is going to paint this as being other than embarrassing for the Greens.

 

[Brovion]

Not really, every council will have had a different starting point. You used Horsham as an example, while their starting point is higher, their recycling performance from 2012/13 to 2013/14 dropped -13.88% compared to Brighton who dropped -3.73%. Lewes as an example however does have a rise of 11.93% for the same period. Some of these councils have been run by the same administration for many election cycles and have secure majority control. So it really isn't that objective to be honest, not unless you present some serious context with it.

It might be that B&H's performance in recycling was in a steeper decline before they took over. It's dropped 4 points while they've been in, but what was it dropping before, what were the performance stats then? How can your assertion be objective without knowing all this?

Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh, there are some valid points in your post - but you DO sound a bit like Paul Barber trying to explain away our bad league position just before Hyypia resigned!

 

[Bold Seagull]

How about this then: different tables from a different website showing overall recycling rates over the past few years. Not sure why but this one has 352 different councils and Brighton dropping from 322 when the Greens took over to 327th.

http://www.letsrecycle.com/councils/league-tables/

How much more context do you want? I'm not sure all the context in the world is going to paint this as being other than embarrassing for the Greens.

It's embarrassing for our City, our Council as a whole, not just this administration - that is what it paints.

Even in that table, for the 2 years prior to the Greens getting the council in 2011, B&H dropped 25 places and had a 1.7% drop in recycling from 29.15% to 27.45%. From 2011, the council dropped 5 places with a 0.65% drop in recycling to 26.80%. You could argue they're not as bad as we had before.

One thing is for sure, it is embarrassing, it is a failure. The Greens have just 2 more seats than the Tories, they've inherited poor performance in this area 2011, they've not been able to improve it. To call them a disgrace and not anyone who went before, that is what I'm arguing against.

 

[Bold Seagull]

Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh, there are some valid points in your post - but you DO sound a bit like Paul Barber trying to explain away our bad league position just before Hyypia resigned!

No seriously, that is funny. I'll take it as an insult - piss take - backhanded compliment in equal measure!

 

[Camicus]

Northamptonshire has one of the highest recycling rates in the country you put everything remotely recyclable in one bin. They take it away weekly sort it and sell it on. The solution isn't that hard

 

[Buzzer]

Even in that table, for the 2 years prior to the Greens getting the council in 2011, B&H dropped 25 places and had a 1.7% drop in recycling from 29.15% to 27.45%. From 2011, the council dropped 5 places with a 0.65% drop in recycling to 26.80%. You could argue they're not as bad as we had before.

You could argue that the rate of decline in recycling is reducing if you were clutching at straws, yes although given that they are still dropping places compared with other councils over the period even that would suggest that most other councils around that position are better at reducing the rate of decline so it's still a poor performance.

To call them a disgrace and not anyone who went before, that is what I'm arguing against.

I've sung their praises on here numerous times regarding the Level/London Road development, I've also been mightily impressed with our local Green MP but I'm incredibly disillusioned with local politics and truly think they are all as bad as each other. If I were ever to vote again locally it would be because a party were particularly strong on a theme that resonated with me and waste recycling and refuse collection is something that just pees me off with this town. As Guinness Boy has said this is their USP, it's what they should be rock solid on with lots and lots of ideas and innovations and they've been a complete failure in this regard. It's got worse under the Greens.

The relativism you speak of is fair enough if it were something like parking or traffic or the numbers of vagrants in the town. All the councils have been bad at dealing with this and all equally culpable but for a specifically Green council to preside over a worsening recycling rate takes a certain degree of incompetence on their part and if we can't trust them to get the recycling done right what hope is there for the other stuff?

 

[Bold Seagull]

Northamptonshire has one of the highest recycling rates in the country you put everything remotely recyclable in one bin. They take it away weekly sort it and sell it on. The solution isn't that hard

It would be good to know who implemented our ridiculous system of undersized back boxes, the man hours to collect them, and the way they're then processed.

 

[surrey jim]

I totally agree that it's a disgraceful record but what do you think the council should be doing to improve recycling rates. Heavy fines for households? Weekly collections? An extensive propaganda campaign? In a time of budget cuts, the last two would be expensive and the first one would be very unpopular. Councils are on their own can do little to change mindsets, I'd have thought (which made the Green claim that it could hit the 70% mark, a rather foolish one)

Two ideas here:

1. Implement weekly recycling collections and fortnightly bin collections. At home we tend to recycle as much as we can however the 4 black boxes we are given often fill up before collection, hence me having to trapse to the tip to recycle or throw in normal household bin.
2. Advertise more the deals they currently subsidise for recycling. I.E a composter for a fiver, water butts for £20. These deals are much better than at B&Q/Homebase. The council subsidise them but dont tell anyone /encourage you to recycle food waste
http://www.brighton-hove.getcomposting.com/

N.B adding onto item one - Would be ideal if the council could provide proper wheelie bins to collect from. The current black boxes spread recycling everywhere and blow around in the wind. However aware that this is unlikley due to costing.

 

[sten_super]

N.B adding onto item one - Would be ideal if the council could provide proper wheelie bins to collect from. The current black boxes spread recycling everywhere and blow around in the wind. However aware that this is unlikley due to costing.

You say this, but surely the cost of collecting every week, rather than every two (as per your first idea) would be much more expensive in the long run?

In Cambridgeshire we have 3 full-sized bins - one green (compostables), one blue (all recycling) and one black (landfill). One week they collect the black bin, the next week the other two. Our blue bin fills up before the black one, and the recycling rate (according to that website posted earlier) is 58%. As [MENTION=25286]Camicus[/MENTION] says, it's not a difficult thing to address through policy (although more difficult in these of local government ultra-austerity).

 

[surrey jim]

You say this, but surely the cost of collecting every week, rather than every two (as per your first idea) would be much more expensive in the long run?

In Cambridgeshire we have 3 full-sized bins - one green (compostables), one blue (all recycling) and one black (landfill). One week they collect the black bin, the next week the other two. Our blue bin fills up before the black one, and the recycling rate (according to that website posted earlier) is 58%. As @Camicus says, it's not a difficult thing to address through policy (although more difficult in these of local government ultra-austerity).

Mine is a simplistic idea, in that we would be collecting normal bins every two weeks and recycling every week hence the two balancing out and not costing much more in man power (possibly would need to invest in veichles as one off)

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I totally agree that it's a disgraceful record but what do you think the council should be doing to improve recycling rates. Heavy fines for households? Weekly collections? An extensive propaganda campaign? In a time of budget cuts, the last two would be expensive and the first one would be very unpopular. Councils are on their own can do little to change mindsets, I'd have thought (which made the Green claim that it could hit the 70% mark, a rather foolish one)

CityClean do want to switch to weekly recycling and bi-weekly rubbish to both cut costs and increase recycling but they have been prevented from doing so because the council is run by a minority and Labour and the Tories flat out refuse to support the idea.

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I've pretty much (silently) agreed with everything you've said on this thread, but I've got to take a slight issue with this one. Why couldn't they have done what the more environmentally-aware Tory councils did and introduce garden waste collections? I've only got a small garden but it generates a surprising amount of waste - and yes I compost. In the time when I didn't have a car all I could do was discreetly put it in the normal bin. I shall be car-less again soon so I shall have to go back to doing that.

It IS a pretty poor show when the one thing you'd think the Greens would be really good at they've been absolutely pissed on by Tories elsewhere in Sussex.

Once again, something CityClean want to do BUT they have been told to cut £800k from their budget for 2015. They costed up the garden waste collection service and it would cost £1m a year to run just in the suburbs. One thing they are considering is a charged service - a set cost per year to have your garden waste collected every other week for 10 months of the year. Out of interest, would you be prepared to pay and if so, how much ?

 

[Westdene Seagull]

How about this then: different tables from a different website showing overall recycling rates over the past few years. Not sure why but this one has 352 different councils and Brighton dropping from 322 when the Greens took over to 327th.

http://www.letsrecycle.com/councils/league-tables/

How much more context do you want? I'm not sure all the context in the world is going to paint this as being other than embarrassing for the Greens.

I'm not defending the Greens at all here ( they've been an utter failure ) but those percentages need proper tonnage to make a proper comparison. One reason so many councils have seen a drop in their recycling % is that we are now throwing less stuff away - 7% less in B&H's case. That reduction has come from less packaging, less people buying papers etc so the % recycled has taken most the hit.

 

[Chicken Run]

Hate to say it but if they want to improve the recycle performance they need to concentrate on the suburbs mainly with a two wheelie bin system similar to Mid Sussex. The urban areas will just have to stick to communal bins.

 

[Buzzer]

I'm not defending the Greens at all here ( they've been an utter failure ) but those percentages need proper tonnage to make a proper comparison. One reason so many councils have seen a drop in their recycling % is that we are now throwing less stuff away - 7% less in B&H's case. That reduction has come from less packaging, less people buying papers etc so the % recycled has taken most the hit.

I'm not sure that's right. Presumably the decline in buying newspapers and reduction in packaging isn't just a Brighton thing, it's happened across the country. You can't compare tonnage because councils have vastly different populations, all you can do is look at the waste collected/recycled and waste thrown away and compare the two and then compare this against other councils which is what all these tables have done. I really don't think that Brighton's unique in the way that we buy things.

 

[Gwylan]

CityClean do want to switch to weekly recycling and bi-weekly rubbish to both cut costs and increase recycling but they have been prevented from doing so because the council is run by a minority and Labour and the Tories flat out refuse to support the idea.

I didn't know that but it is worth pointing out, again, that the Greens can't do anything on their own. So, in this case,it looks like one of the reasons for the poor recycling is down to the other two parties rather than the Greens. I'm not sure that's the whole story though

One thing they are considering is a charged service - a set cost per year to have your garden waste collected every other week for 10 months of the year. Out of interest, would you be prepared to pay and if so, how much ?

I would if it were something like a fiver a month

 

[Westdene Seagull]

I would if it were something like a fiver a month

Coincidently the projected break even point is £60 a year ..... or £5 a month !

 

[Brovion]

Once again, something CityClean want to do BUT they have been told to cut £800k from their budget for 2015. They costed up the garden waste collection service and it would cost £1m a year to run just in the suburbs. One thing they are considering is a charged service - a set cost per year to have your garden waste collected every other week for 10 months of the year. Out of interest, would you be prepared to pay and if so, how much ?

No I wouldn't pay. I used to pay for Magpie, but that was in the 'old days' when there was no other way to recycle plastic. I expect all waste collections to be covered by my Council Tax.

And I really don't buy this 'no budget' line. The council have got 8 million quid to alter the road layout round Valley Gardens (whether that will be an improvement or not is a subject for another thread!) That apparently has come from some central pot from some government agency. Leaving aside the allocation of the Council's own resources are you really telling me that there is no central government or EU fund that couldn't have been approached to set up a garden waste recycling scheme? Brighton Council (and I accept it isn't 100% the fault of the Greens) simply had other priorities.