Leicestershire CC Waste Consultation

Leicestershire CC are running a consultation about waste, which appears to be primarily focused on residents, not groups, see Leicestershire's Resources and Waste Strategy 2022-2050 | Leicestershire County Council.  The consultation closes on the 25^th April and it would be good if county residents at least would respond.

This consultation needs to be seen as part of the wider picture, for instance:

·         Peat.  One of the excuses for continued peat use is the lack of volume of the alternatives.  With District Councils in the county charging up to £55/year for green waste collection we have a disincentive for people to treat their green waste responsibly and a great incentive to add it to the black (general waste) bin.  What we really need is for councils to stop charging for green waste and proactively seek it out to turn it into compost as a peat replacement and exploit the commercial opportunity, if people don't have a home compost heap.  This aspect gets little attention in the consultation.

·         Air pollution. Landfill sites emit methane as materials rot down.  Methane is a greenhouse gas over 20 times as harmful as CO2, so allowing landfill sites to emit it is increasing climate change. With the current issues with fossil fuel prices we need to be capturing methane and using it, a win-win commercially and environmentally.  At its worst, methane leakage can affect nearby buildings, Huncote Leisure centre being a local example of how to get it wrong, see Huncote Leisure Centre to stay shut for longer over methane risk - BBC News

·         Zero emission waste trucks. While we all want to see less HGVs on our roads, we are going to be stuck with refuse trucks for the foreseeable future.  A commitment to explore more environmentally friendly refuse collection trucks would be welcome, as is already happening in Aberdeen, see Aberdeen City Council adds UK's first hydrogen fuel cell waste truck to the fleet | Aberdeen City Council which would reduce emissions and costs, long term.

With all these things we need the council to be innovative and live up to the old phrase “where there’s muck there’s brass”, because we have plenty of muck to make brass from. 

Please respond to the consultation and encourage Leicestershire to think about where waste services fit in the bigger picture.

Green Screen: Waste Land film showing

We are currently working with the Phoenix cinema to host a series of environmental films. The first was Down to Earth in November, which was introduced by our very own Malcolm Hunter, who gave us an overview of climate science before the film started. 

The second film, in January, was Waste Land. Marie Lefebvre from Leicester Fixers introduced the film by talking about the importance of repair and projects in Leicester that are encouraging people to repair rather than replace. 

Waste Land was the story of an artist who worked with 'pickers', i.e., people collecting materials for recycling, at a landfill site in Brazil. He collaborated with the pickers to create portraits of them using rubbish from the landfill site. Many of us went to see this film expecting it to be rather grim and depressing but in fact it was rather inspiring. The pickers were obviously doing a job that most of us wouldn't choose, and many of them had had to resort to that way of earning their living when something had gone wrong in their life (parents dying, divorce etc.) But in spite of this, they were incredibly dignified and in some cases, even proud of their work. They recognised the importance of what they were doing. The vice-president of the pickers' workers' association explained that any material they could remove from the landfill site would reduce pollution. He said that when people asked him what the point was in recycling one aluminium can, he would reply that 99 is not 100 and that recycling even one can makes a difference. 

The artist's project made the pickers famous. When the president of the pickers' workers' association was interviewed on national television, he corrected the interviewer who introduced him as a 'collector of garbage': 'May I just correct you? We don't collect garbage - we collect recyclable materials.' He received a round of applause. Let's hope we can all get better at recognising the value of our waste.