Teen beauty spot drinkers are ramblers, not rebels
- Dave Burrows
Letter: Was end of cardboard collection all a ploy?
Friday 13th January 2012, 8:10AM GMT.
When I started my e-petition against the stopping of cardboard collections last November, although I knew the arguments, I didn’t want to believe that the motivation behind that move and the refusal to consider alternatives was a cynical ploy to help ensure the viability of a possible future incinerator – I hoped it was more the result of incompetence.
But now I think I was being naive.
Yes, incineration reduces landfill, but it is a solution that encourages throughput of waste and does nothing to reduce it at source or encourage more recycling, and much of the material burned is lost forever.
The example shown by hundreds of citizens who turned out to recycle their cardboard in aid of charity demonstrates that what people want in this county and what they get are a million miles apart.
Presumably, Shropshire Council considered kerbside collection of co-mingled waste when examining all the possibilities for a long term solution for the county.
I’m left wondering why that system wasn’t chosen and whose benefit the new system plus incinerator is really for.
I’m fortunate in a way, as when I do my shopping in Powys I can also take my cardboard and all manner of plastic across the border where recycling rates improve year on year and the proceeds from the sale of the materials is distributed among community groups.
Oh, for a bit more imagination over on the English side.
Patrick Cosgrove
Chapel Lawn
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Firstly, you are to be congratulated on your efforts – although I am lucky enough to live in that cardboard recylcing utopia that is Telford, I atill have difficulty understanding how Shropshire Council can justify not recycling one of the most basic and easily recycleable products there is ….
Given the efforts of campaigns like your own, and the Christmas Cardboard collection organised by a couple of other Shropshireians you would think the Council would remember they are there to serve the people not the other way round (and this from someone who works in the public sector !!!)
Further with all the European and Worldwide commitments our natiuonal Government has with regard to recycling and global warming causes, you think someone in Whitehall would be down on this subject like a ton of bricks.
Then maybe I’m just being naive as well as you …..
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“I’m left wondering whose benefit the new system plus incinerator is really for.” It’s obvious Patrick, the ONLY beneficiary is Veolia and they have our council kneeling at their feet. The tinpot regulation which decreed that toxins in cardboard deemed it unhealthy to mix with green waste has been a godsend to Veolia’s case for an incinerator. Your petition demonstrated the strength of feeling about this issue but this is 2012 and democracy as we knew it is dead. The mass views of sane people no longer count against big business.
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Thank you Shropsman, but congratulations are hardly appropriate when Veolia has duped the County Council with its aggressive and rapacious tactics. Is this a foretaste of localism, “presumption in favour of development”?
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It was a rhetorical question, Rose. Of course Veolia is the only real beneficiary and I am in complete agreement with you about the erosion of democracy. I’m not so sure about “tinpot” regarding the change in regulations for compost quality. I talked to the guy who runs AFOR, the compost lead body, and he explained that where plastic tape enters the manufacturing process shreads of it can end up scattered across fields and ingested by livestock. I have no reason to doubt him as he has no vested interest in waste collection arrangements other than the quality of compost. The point here is that other local authorities have introduced alternative methods of collection but Shropshre has failed to. Cllr Mike Owen stated in December that he was still determined to see an alternative system introduced. I’m very interested to see if that ever appears. At the moment I doubt it because cardboard will burn very nicely in the incinerator.
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how they havent sorted something out by now is beyond me, its simple, pick it up with the paper and cans and separate it at Shotton Paper Mills new recycling separation factory
job done
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Well done for keeping the pressure on the council, Patrick.
I hope more and more people will add their names to your e-petition by January 31st to register their disgust at the incinerator decision.
http://petitions.shropshire.gov.uk/petitions.ti/cardboard
Keep up the good work!
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Have you ever thought about the pollution HGV vehicles produces collecting this Cardboard? Probably as much as if you just burnt it!
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But if you collect it in a lorry, Rad, and then drive it to an incinerator, you’re creating far more pollution than collecting it in a lorry and driving it to be recycled.
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Of course, one of the best ways of protesting against the council and Violia’s attitude to all this, is to deprive them of their real money earner…the tin cans…put it in with your landfill and deprive them of around £600 per ton.
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tin cans can be recycled? I now feel guilty for having thrown them in the black bag for the last 5 years…
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There is no diktat,as far as I am aware, that anyone or any council has to take any rubbish to the incinerator.
If the political cross party will is in place Shropshire County Council could establish their own advanced recycling system.
Take a serious look at the system in Powys,even drink cartons are recycled and private contractor Potters have a very clean and efficient depot in Welshpool where some items taken in by the public which although unwanted are fit to be re used are left out for purchase for a minimal amount,a pound is typical,and all the thousands generated each year is donated to charity.
Although SCC has a long way to go dont forget the incinerator project is a private venture forced on Shropshire by an inspectors decision based on a commercial application
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they could learn alot from the welsh. local firm Cae Post who run collections for ALL types of plastics in Welshpool, Montgomery and all along the shropshire borderlands collect all types of plastics for recycling, they also have skips out in Oswestry and Bishops castle which you can take ALL types of plastics too for recycling, they go to a local firm in wolverhampton who can make fence posts from the mixture of plastics. and they do all this as a charity, not for profit, ie at cost.
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I would love to here what Daniel Kawczynski has to say on this subject, he seems to be very quiet which is so unlike Daniel.
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cock up or conspirary ?
Either way veolia has ruined the councils reputation tarnished it permanently and undermined years of good work
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