Talking Rubbish on the Radio Again

This morning I was asked to go on BBC Radio WM to defend councils' abilities to fine people for not recycling or persistently putting waste in the wrong place after Caroline Spelman said the government were going to put a stop to bin fines.

Up against "Big Brother Watch" (another of those right-wing libertarian organisations set up by Matthew Elliot of Tax Payers' Alliance), I was presented with a view of a world when councils send people out to spy on innocent residents, handing out fixed penalty notices every time a wheelie bin is a couple of inches from where it should be.

Now, going on to defend councils fining people wouldn't be everyone's favourite thing to do, so it was important to make points on cost above all else. Fines are (or certainly should be) a last resort, but the government is just playing to certain parts of the press with this latest announcement.

The real issue should be that we are no longer living in a world where waste management is about disposal. Resources are too valuable for that and prices are going up all the time, so recycling is not just an environmental imperative, but a financial one too. This means that in fiscally stretched times, it is more important than ever that people do recycle and recover value, rather than costing the council more money by chucking everything into the bin to be burnt or buried.

Last week we gave evidence to the scrutiny committee review on this and are very determined that Birmingham should transform services to a "resource recovery system". This means mainly working with communities and companies that can give us the best value and environmental outcomes possible. If fines are removed, it simply gives the wrong message to people about the value of doing the right thing. It should never be near the top of actions to be taken and I think it is very unlikely that it ever is.

People want their streets to be clean and their bills to be lower. Councils need to work together with residents and recycling companies to achieve this, reduce carbon emissions and create jobs.

Joe Peacock

A good time to contact your councillor about waste

Next week Birmingham Friends of the Earth (along with other interested parties) will be giving evidence to the scrutiny committee's Municipal Waste review.

If you wish to read in detail a lot of the work we've done on this, then it's on our website, but I just want you to grab this opportunity to get your councillor to feed in to this review, too. I have been made aware that councillors have today received details of the terms of reference of the review, so will know it is happening and can respond if they wish.

If you are unhappy with the current system, do not want black bags whose contents get strewn everywhere, would rather we moved away from burning rubbish and creating 280 000 tonnes of CO2 per year from the incinerator to a system where we get maximum value for money out of the resources we have, please contact your councillor today and ask them to put this case.

Email us via campaigns@birminghamfoe.org.uk if you want advice on what to say.

Joe Peacock

Birmingham's 150-year-old recycling centre

Yesterday, I was allowed to attend a visit to the paper mill run by Smurfit Kappa along with members of the scrutiny committee of Birmingham City Council. Beforehand, they visited the incinerator in Tyseley (to which I was not allowed to go on the behest of Veolia - wonder why).

As the council delegation was substantially delayed at their incinerator visit, I was able to ask quite a few questions before they got there and found the hosts very obliging and willing to talk about a range of environmental subjects. Mostly, though they were proud to be in this place where recycling has been taking place for about 150 years (there will apparently be some sort of celebration of this next year).

It turns out that they are quite happy with the current system of how paper and card is collected in boxes for kerbside collection, so long as it's not mixed with other recyclable materials (glass, tins plastic). They are happy to take all types of paper and cardboard and it all gets turned into one type of material (the outer layer on cardboard boxes, which you can see here on massive rolls.

I'd never been to a recycling plant before, so to see the scale of it was quite impressive. I realise that there are economies of scale from collecting all types of paper together, but it does seem a bit of a shame that better quality paper all gets turned into the lower grade stuff for cardboard boxes. Is there nowhere in Birmingham that makes recycled office or toilet paper? How far does that have to travel?

We are continuing our work to prepare evidence to give to the committee for the Municipal Waste Review when we want to propose a transformation of what's done in Birmingham and move to a resource recovery economy rather than a waste disposal system. See the articles on our website for more information.

Joe Peacock

Comments from Our Waste Round Table Dicussion

Last week, we held a round table discussion with the Chamberlain Forum including representatives from residents' groups and community recyclers to talk about the issues of waste in Birmingham connected to our campaign to Halve Rubbish.

During the discussion, people were invited to put their thoughts onto post-it notes, in a similar way to how people might be tweeting comments in other meetings. They were collected and written up afterwards to provide an interesting snapshot of the thoughts of the participants, so here they are:

• Zero Carbon FC. What do they do with the rubbish from playing fields?

• ‘Nature’ is good at recycling.

• A Birmingham Problem?

• Success story on paper.

‘Rubbish Capital of the Midlands’ – Incinerator strategy.

• Rats because of the way we deal with waste.

• Hidden cost of waste includes fires/fire service.

• Fires of rubbish – how much could the fire service save per year without them?

• Waste is co-produced.

• Waste = Misplaced resources.

• Bikes are incinerated when they go to HRCs! That’s crazy. How many other useful things?

• Rubbish is mixed up waste.

• Litter is rubbish that is scattered.

• There is always waste, what matters is what we do with it.

• ‘System’ puts stuff in the wrong place.

• Separation is the key.

• “Compost is the most valuable resource in the world”. Proper job.

• Council can make it easy or make it difficult for communities to recycle.

• Decentralise: lots of little local solutions – avoid ‘grand plans’.

• What is the optimum number of AD plants for Bham?

• Council could help by providing sites for community recycling in town centres. How can this be facilitated?

• Legislation to prohibit recyclable products (food waste, cardboard etc) in landfill will stimulate the need for recycling. Is this imminent?

• Local Green Fund – get people in Bham to put money in! £40 per person will do it!

• No point exchanging nuisance social problem with a bigger one of deprivation. Economic development is the key.

Beyond Rubbish?

I spent Easter weekend with some residents of South Cambridgeshire District Council, which includes the city of Cambridge. Their district has ‘Beacon status’ being one of the top 3 for recycling – it recycles 80% of domestic waste, compared to Birmingham’s 32%. They told me how it all works.

The council has invested in 3 bins for each household. All waste is in bins. I didn’t notice any rubbish or litter in Cambridge.

1. All cooked and uncooked food, along with garden waste and other compostables goes in the green bin, which is collected fortnightly. It is all composted outdoors in huge boxes, sieved and sold to residents as garden compost. The high temperatures 90 C, inside the heaps kills all the bugs that might make smells or disease. No bin bags are produced or left around. The Council has found that the rats and vermin problem has declined hugely since they did this, reports my friend who is a vet.

2. All dry paper, plastic, glass, metal etc goes into the blue bin. There is a compartment within to keep paper separate for recycling. A company called Donarbon Ltd has a plant that mechanically sorts all of this for recycling. There is an education centre where you can visit, watch and learn.

3. The black bin is for residual waste i.e. the remaining 20% by weight. This is only collected fortnightly, but my friends say they actually only need to put it out every few weeks, as it is inert and non smelly.

There is no incineration of waste. Carbon is being locked up in the composting process, so the carbon footprint must be really low. The residual waste goes to landfill, As they are successful in persuading people not to put food in the black bin, methane emissions will reduce.

Their website states: “The Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) MBT plant, which cost just over £41Million to build and equip, is the centrepiece of the 28-year PFI waste management contract between Cambridgeshire County Council and Donarbon, whereby Donarbon will be responsible for treating the majority of household waste from Cambridgeshire and ensuring that councils meet their recycling and landfill diversion targets.”

Imagine if Birmingham had an 80% recycling rate and a hugely reduced rat population, how much nicer would the city be? There would be no more sights like these:

Websites for further information;

http://www.scambs.gov.uk/Environment/Wasteandrecycling/Recycling

http://www.donarbon.com/

John Newson

Plastic Fantastic?

An article in the Independent on Sunday yesterday reported on unpublished government research on plastic bags which was purported to show plastic bags as a greener option than re-usable ones.

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/plastic-fantastic-carrier-bags-not-ecovillains-after-all-2220129.html

This has been done before with re-usable nappies v disposables and with plastic cups v washable ones, but these always seem to be based on flawed assumptions about how long they're used for and ignore the whole of the life-cycle of the items concerned.

The article says:

"Six billion plastic bags are used across the UK annually and there is no doubt that they cause environmental problems such as litter and marine pollution as well as using up oil, and limiting their use and re-using them reduces their harm."

so it begs the question as to why it is a controversial topic at all. If the only issue is about other bags not being re-used enough, then we need to make sure that they're well enough made that they don't need to be thrown away. Personally, I've never thrown away a cotton or jute bag - they can be used again and again - I only ever refuse them at events where people are trying to give them away, so as not to end up with more than I could possibly use.

The report doesn't seem to look at recycling, the raw materials needed for different bags or the effect of all the bags that aren't disposed of properly (ending up in hedgerows, blowing across our streets or in waterways).

Paper bags probably aren't always the best option either, but the evidence for plastic is certainly not strong enough to revisit the direction of policy to go in their favour.

Joe Peacock

Eco Dimension Day

Blog entries seem to be a little scarce of late, so I thought I'd do a quick report on an Eco Dimension Day I went along to on behalf of BFoE last week at Washwood Heath Technology College.

The Eco Dimension Day was the brainchild of Corinne Campbell, and the aim of the day was to raise awareness about environmental issues, such as recycling and sustainability, amongst the 11-13 year olds who attend the school. There were loads of activities lined up for the day, including re-using items to make clothes, cooking demonstrations and workshops, and animation classes. Before I arrived at the school I had no idea in which area Corinne wanted me to help out, and to be honest I was a little apprehensive, mainly as I didn't want to appear to not know my stuff in front of people half my age! After nervously sitting through an assembly (for the first time in about 10 years!), I was last to be assigned a task for the day. Luckily for me the group I was working with were looking at two of my favourite things: environmental issues and Lego. I was helping out a class who were given the difficult task of designing an "Eco Village".

The day kicked off with the students watching a few topical videos to get them thinking about what sort of ideas would need to be incorporated into the village to make it environmentally friendly and sustainable. They were then split into four groups and asked to brainstorm ideas for their village (on a side note, brainstorming these days is referred to as mind mapping, I'm so out of touch!). I was then asked to give a demonstration on renewable energy sources using a clever little model which incorporated wind, solar and hydroelectric power. It was then break time, and an exciting opportunity for me to see inside the staff room! Needless to say, once you're an adult the mysteries of the staff room are slightly less romantic than when I was a child. It in fact resembled the staff room of most places I've worked at, although they were giving out free tea, and by this point I was gasping.

After break, the students had until lunch time to design and make a model village out of Lego using the ideas they'd been discussing all morning. At first, most of the pupils set about making an ultimate village, with little regard for the environment, not believing their luck that they were allowed to play with Lego during school hours! After experiencing similar excitement, I thought I'd best interject and encourage them to think about practical issues, such as energy sources, food, farmland, and transport. Many of the pupils had areas set aside for wind farms and areas to grow fruit and vegetables. They also organised their village so everything was close by to reduce the need to use cars, and had various ideas to encourage cycling. Other ideas were not so green (one village had an enormous block of flats in the centre, possibly a first for a village?!), but the exercise certainly achieved its aim of getting the children to think about the way they live.

Next came lunch. I was unaware, but one of the perks of being a teacher is that you can push to the front of the line for a hot school dinner, so I was straight in with my healthy pizza and chips option to relive my school days further. The rest of the afternoon was taken up with an assembly where the pupils had the opportunity to display and talk about what they had been doing that day. All in all, the day was a huge success, and got everyone, both staff and students, thinking about environmental issues.

I was alarmed at how many of the students got a lift to school, even though some of them lived a mere ten minute walk away. In their defense, if offered a lift to school on a cold morning, I'm sure it's hard to refuse. However, this outlined to me that the onus lies on the parents in educating their children on the importance of being what is frequently termed "eco-friendly". The majority of the students had no idea why making short trips in a car was bad for the environment, and similarly why they should recycle and shouldn't be leaving electrical items on when not in use, to name but three. That's why this day was so important. Children need to be aware that their actions, however small, will make a difference, whether positively or negatively. So hopefully at the very least the pupils involved in the event will think about their actions and their lifestyle, as at the end of the day it will be them who will benefit from a green lifestyle in the future.

Ding Dong Definitely Don't Buy

Well, the holiday season is almost upon us. It's nearly time to drag the tree (complete with a bonus 12 months-worth of dust) out of the loft and to listen to the delightful chorus of... your significant other and your dad cursing between one another, as they search in vain for the faulty bulb in the fairy lights which is preventing them from switching on. I suspect that the cynics amongst you will say 'But Erica, there's another month to go until we can experience those simple joys!' On the contrary my friends; now is precisely the time to start thinking creatively about Christmas.

Did you know that every single Boxing Day, us Brits throw away an estimated 83 square kilometres of wrapping paper, and that 1 billion of those cards that you carefully picked out and hand-wrote end up in the bin? Yes, that's right. Your auntie Sue threw away your carefully chosen holographic, so-shiny-its-seizure-inducing Christmas card practically as soon as it came through her letterbox. Collectively, we produce an estimated 3 million tonnes of waste over the holidays. But there is a better way! There are a number of ways you can keep Christmas fun (in fact, make it even more fun) and make it healthier for the environment (as well as your pocket). All it requires is a bit of creativity. So, here are three fun, eco-friendly solutions to your Christmas woes.

1. Handmade Christmas
The Objective: Make your Christmas presents from scratch. You could paint a picture for a friend who's just moved house, or knit an iPod cozy for your significant other. If you think creatively about what your loved ones might want, you can get their present just right. You can also make your gifts out of recycled materials, such as a patchwork quilt constructed from much-loved but now too-worn to wear t-shirts. Handmade Christmas is the best way to give your friends and family something unique, personal and made just for them! What could be more heart-warming and Christmassy than that?

Pros: Making things is fun and the gift you give will be totally one-of-a-kind.
Cons: It takes TIME, so start thinking and then get crafty ASAP!

2. Charity Christmas
The Objective: All gifts bought must come from a charity shop. Ideally there should be some sort of price limit set (£5 per gift is usually about right), but how you set that is up to you. In my family, my mom gives a prize-present for the best (most funny, perfect or unique) gift given. When she let slip that this year's prize was going to be a goat I dimly asked “Ooh, could we have chickens instead? Free free-range eggs!”. It turns out that she meant a goat to be given to an African family, which is much more fitting for Christmas which is, after all, about caring for each other.

Pros: The money you spend will go to charity, it will cost you less and requires ingenuity.
Cons: Charity Christmas is becoming more and more popular, so make sure you start browsing early. You don't want to start looking on Christmas Eve when all of the good stuff will already be sitting, wrapped, under someone else's tree.

3. Recycled Christmas
The Objective: All gift-wrapping must be done with creatively collected recycled (and preferably recyclable) materials. I don't mean buying new rolls of paper made from recycled material, I mean ribbon made from pairs of laddered tights or newspaper upon which you've stamped, drawn or painted a pretty, festive design. It doesn't matter if the wrapping doesn't sit flush or isn't immaculately folded; you can really get creative with wrapping presents this way and your household clutter will be getting a final hurrah. All in all, you will lose far less waste and gain a free-reign to get creative this Christmas.

Pros: You're creating less rubbish and having more fun with your gift-wrapping (and opening)!
Cons: Make sure you don't go cutting up your mom's curtains for ribbon; she won't thank you for that.

It seems that every year there is an increasing number of people bemoaning the degeneration of Christmas. Along with the festive joy there is a feeling of sadness, that it has become something only worthy of celebration for those in the retail industry. Richard Wilkinson, co-author of the book 'The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better' thinks that materialism is not about the gifts that we buy and give, but more about what those things say about us to the person receiving. Wilkinson explains that “It's not material self-interest, it's that we're so sensitive. We experience ourselves through each other's eyes - and that's the reason for the labels and the clothes and the cars”. The fact is that those who love you don't care how much money you have to spend on their gift; what matters to them is what that gift means. Handmade, Charity and Recycled Christmas are all things which bring Christmas back to the people; where we can stop frivolously spending and consuming (often beyond our means) and really show our loved-ones how much they mean to us.

References:

“Cutting Down on Christmas Waste”:

http://www.wasteonline.org.uk/resources/InformationSheets/ChristmasRecycling.htm

“Throwing Away Christmas Rubbish will cost 78m”:
http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/core/page.do?pageId=6946019

“Equality and the Good Life: Interview with Richard Wilkinson”

http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/want-the-good-life-your-neighbors-need-it-too

Take Action! (Here's some inspiration to get you started):
“A Community for Crafts and DIY Projects”
http://www.craftster.org/

“Sew, cast, carve, solder, sketch, cut, go!”

http://www.folksy.com/making

“Recycle Now: Furoshiki Japanese Wrapping”

http://www.recyclenow.com/what_can_i_do_today/furoshiki_japanese_w.html

Erica Bromage

Hamstead Hall CLC goes Green!!

My school in Handsworth Wood, Birmingham, which has 1100 pupils, has made considerable effort in trying to save energy and stop climate change.

Teachers encourage students to switch off lights when they are not needed, in particular during day light. Small things like this save an enormous amount of energy and help cut Hamstead Hall Community Learning Centre’s carbon footprint.

Hamstead Hall provides the local Handsworth Wood community with fantastic facilities, such as weekend sport clubs. These extra clubs allow community members to use the sports hall and astroturf out of school hours. Therefore, keeping up a good image is vital for such a neighbourhood-based school.

Recycling is also considered to be something important within the school. In every classroom there are large paper bags where students are required to recycle paper and plastic bottles.


As part of Personal, Social Health Education days students participate in workshops within the geography department where they learn about the environment and their carbon emissions by calculating their carbon footprint. The head of geography says “the pupils were amazed to see how much energy they use, by going on the internet and playing on their X-box’s!”.

The ICT department of the school ensures that all computers are switched off after use, in fact there are posters on the walls of the classroom that directly inform students to save energy and stop climate change.

How does our school compare to others in Birmingham? I'd be interested to hear.

Rupi Chandla (Hamstead Hall sixth-form student).

The Moseley Swap Shop

One man's trash is another man's treasure!

At The Moseley Swap Shop

Have u got anything you don't want? Or do you just fancy some new stuff for FREE? Then the Moseley Swap Shop is the place for you! Brought to Moseley by FOEcycle and REUSED. Don't miss first Swap Shop February the 27^th, at the Prince of Wales. It'll open at 12pm and finish around 5pm and will be appearing at The Prince of Wales every 4^th Saturday of the month!

Come along maybe after a visit to the Moseley Farmers Market, pop in to The Prince of Wales to get out of the cold and there you will find books, clothes, kitchen stuff, DVDs, Computer games, Ornaments, and anything you bring along to add! All for FREE This stall is entirely dependant on you getting involved, so come down and participate! Based on the online yahoo group Freecycle (now Freegle). www.IloveFreegle.org which allows you to place ads to get rid of things you don't need and respond to ads to get things you do, without money getting involved, well worth a look. The Moseley Swap Shop is your local alternative!

We all know about the 3R's, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, this is a great way to achieve all 3 of them on a Saturday afternoon in the pub and leave with some nice stuff! The stall will also be taking donations for Birmingham Friends Of The Earth and have promotional information available about the activities of BFOE in Birmingham, and other information about what Green alternative stuff is going on in Birmingham and how you can get involved if you're interested.

So don't miss out on the 27th of Feb because you won't be disappointed!

If you have any inquires please email me at fisher_woman@live.co.uk

Happily Ever Crafter

The tale of Its a wrap continued...

On the 3rd Monday of the month at 6.30pm at Birmingham Friends of the Earth's warehouse Allison St, B5 5TH, There will be a craft group! Led by Becks and Beth, it will cover loads of different ways of making things over the weeks.

The first session will be Recycled Craft! on Monday the 15th of February we will be looking at what can be made out of a juice cartons for example wallets, decorations, jewellery, baskets etc. Please bring juice cartons if you have any lying around, we have got some, but more is always better!

So.... please come along for tea and craft and do get in touch if you have any talent, maybe you would like to lead a work shop or requests, for a workshop you would like us to run any suggestions welcome! you can email us at reused.it@gmail.com

Its a wrap: Knot just for Christmas

Another fun night was had at our second It’s a wrap crafting night on the 23rd November. We were a little squashed in the front resourses room at the Warehouse, but managed to move around the tables to make everyone comfortable.

We had less sewing machines than we had at our last group so some made bags on the machines, whilst others made reusable gift tags made with recycled felt made from plastic bottles. Roger, our token man, but willing crafter made bottle bags out of the sleeves of donated shirts.

A lot of chat and discussion was shared over the sewing, with Denise from COW (Creative Open workshops) talking about how she finger crochets with plarn, yarn made out of plastic bags, while Beth showed us a bag she had crocheted out of plastic barrier tape she collected together.

I also mentioned what I had spotted that week when walking past Lush I was surprised to discover this window display. Had they heard about Its a wrap and taken, but no, after looking in their promotional paper its a national Lush offering: Knot just for Christmas, Go Lush!

Knot for Christmas is a gift wrap service using vintage scarves to wrap their products in, more info is on their web page about this knot wrapping service. I have also seen this furoshiki wrapping and have got some lovely furoshiki Christmas and other wraps from my favourite folksy seller myfuroshiki which will be for sale at our Friends of the Earth Green Christmas Fair in Moseley on the 19th December, so come along and see what we have on offer.

Its a wrap had another productive night and here are some of the great bags and recycled gift tags that were made on the night. All of these will be available at the Green Fair in Moseley on the 19th December. If you want to come along and join in the fun, the next session is on the 14th December, hopefully see you there.

Its a wrap, 9th November

Thanks for all the people that came along to the first It's a wrap crafting group, here is a selection of what was created:

Lots of people turned up with their sewing machines, including the C.O.W. Girls. I brought along a few items we could make including wine bag, draw string bags, a CD/DVD wrap and a furoshiki wraps.

My friend had donated some fascinators, which distracted the everyone at first, as you can see!

I then demonstrated the different wraps (did feel a bit like a person on QVC or one of those stalls at the market that demonstrate the veg cutting devices and someone did shout out "Do we get a free knife if we watch it all the way through!)

And then we all dived in to chose our material and get going.



We also had some lovely cakes and flapjacks to help us along the way.

So please come along to our next It's a wrap group, which will be a drop in from 6.00 pm onwards:

• 23rd November
  
• 14th December
  

And at the Christmas Market in Moseley CDT on 19th December all you lovely peeps will be able to buy the "It's a wrap" produce.

Hopefully see you soon!

Its a wrap: Birmingham Friends of the Earth get stitched up

Lets be honest, wrapping gifts in paper, it’s all about the eye candy and not much about the environment. In the UK, we waste stacks of trees and resources with glitzy paper for a 20 second fix. It is estimated by Waste online that over Christmas as much as 83 square km of wrapping paper will end up in UK rubbish bins, enough to cover an area larger than Guernsey and the total waste wrapping paper the UK produces over Christmas could stretch to the moon if each sheet was laid end to end.

And part of the problem is the most popular wrapping paper cannot be recycled and ends up in landfill is often dyed, laminated and contains non-paper additives such as gold and silver coloured shapes or glitter which cannot be recycled. This means paper is either dumped in the bin or, worse, put in the recycling bin, which will mean the whole lot is contaminated and has to go to landfill.

So whats this got to do with Birmingham Friends of the Earth?
We want to promote the alternative wrapping that is available, and on the 9th of November will be having its first group of crafters coming together to make creative wrappings to get people to think differently about wrapping paper and also make items that will be showcased and available for sale at our Christmas fare on the 19th December and hopefully will raise some money to get allow great campaigning around the city. Contact Joe Peacock on 0121 632 6909 or email http://www.blogger.com/campaigns@birminghamfoe.org.uk.

So here are some of the things the crafters will be making for alternative wrapping paper, (if you have other ideas, please share them as comments):

Furoshiki, which is a Eastern tradition of wrapping using material, which I discovered after watching recycle now. See myfuroshiki for the real thing, photographed is one of her great prints and will have some of their great products available on the stall on the 19th December. Also I square scarves from charity shops can do the job as well.

Material gift bags that can be used and used again, which can be made over from left over material.


CD/DVD material present bags. This one is from Thailand and can be used again and again.

Use newspaper or magazines for wrapping. Recently I have had lots of success with using adverts in womens magazines, they spend so much on the creative, such as the perfume adverts, its always nice to show them off. Use string or ribbon to wrap them up and you can use them again.

If you cant make it on the 9th November, you can still help out by contributing:

• Any scrap, Christmassy, material we can use. Anything from old curtains, to off cuts, nice duvet covers or pillow cases picked up at a charity shop.
• Scarves that are square shape or can be altered to fit.
• Thread, ribbon and sew on decorations.

Please drop these off at the Warehouse and we will see what our creative people can do.

And start thinking about how you can reduce, reuse and recycle at Christmas!

Fortnightly Bin Collections

At a time of increased political apathy one issue has the residents of Walsall up in arms. The topic: fortnightly bin collections. For some reason the Borough's bin collections appears to have become a local human rights issue, with visions of horror such as maggots, the potential advent of bubonic plague, and maybe even mutant life forms growing in your wheelie bin.

The tabloids have continued to scaremonger with stories of people getting infections from dealing with their rubbish although I am highly suspicious as to how they came to this conclusion. A large petition was handed in at the town hall and the lead story in our local paper this week was that plans to implement fortnightly bin collections have been scrapped.The article stated that when surveyed, two thirds of Walsall residents were against fortnightly collections.

No details were given about how the survey was conducted, over what period and who was involved, and as a resident I would have liked to have had my say. I wonder if anything was done to reassure people about what the service would mean? Maybe more information on composting and recycling could have been given.

The issue could have even been tied in with an increase in what is collected in our recycling bins (currently neither plastic of any kind, or glass are collected). I feel this is a wasted opportunity which could have been dealt with as a really positive thing. Instead people are frightened and feel that they are facing a reduction in service to which they have predictably responded "no way, I pay for that" without considering the wider issues.
Sarah Wiley