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Why sort this waste?
• HOUSEHOLD rubbish peaks to an Everest at Christmas, but Islington Council has given no indication that it is sorting it, now that the bottom has dropped out of the market and paper, plastics and cans are virtually valueless.
There’s a new council recycling team notice in Bath Street: “We recently exchanged the old single-material bins on this site for new mixed recycling bins. This allows you to recycle the same materials as before and means you don’t have to separate your recycling beforehand.”
That is also a mixed message to say the least. Is there now any point in all borough residents sorting their waste, as there are still plenty of recycling bins about and doorstep collection for non-food waste?
Is there also any point in the council sorting bulk waste?
If the council is not sorting it, it must be dumping it in landfill, at £32 a ton, or burning it in the North London Waste Authority’s big energy-from-waste power station at Enfield which supplies 28,000 homes.
If the council is sorting waste, what is it then doing with it if there are no buyers? Storing it could promote an explosion of rats.
However, we are not going to run out of aluminium and iron as they are the world’s two most abundant metals, making up 14 per cent of the earth’s crust.
There’s also a Sahara of sand for glass. Replanted forests are a sustainable resource for paper.
A statement is needed from the council about how it is handling waste now that it is valueless. What should residents do now?
Also, the council seems unprepared to collect borough-wide hazardous, non-recyclable waste such as energy-saving lamps containing poisonous mercury and batteries. There will have been a lot of battery-powered items given as presents at Christmas.
Incandescent lamps of 100 watts are now being phased out, 60 watts in 2010 and 40 watts and everything else from 2011.
The council is still handing out energy-saving lamps free but without borough-wide collection systems in place.
LEO CHAPMAN
Dufferin Street
EC1
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