Once you have filled in Wiltshire Council’s parking consultaiton, there is another important Wiltshire Council ‘consultation’ that is nearing the end of its allotted time – it closes at 5pm on Tuesday, 14 November 2017. It is on waste and recycling.
A new reycling regime comes into force on 30 July next year – but over the coming ten years ‘further service changes may be required’. This consultation – which is also called a ‘survey’ – looks further ahead.
Lurking in the pages of the consultation is the likelihood (already aired in other parts of the country) that collections will become three weekly rather than the current fortnightly. With food waste, this may cause health and pest hazards.
As with the current Wiltshire Council parking consultation, there was criticism at a recent Marlborough Town Council committee meeting that not enough publicity has been given to this consultation to make people aware of it and its importance.
Councillors ‘deplored’ the prospect of three-weekly collections that involved any food waste. Councillor Fogg said that he had reports of maggot-filled bins with the current fortnightly collections.
The substance of the survey does present some hurdles. For example residents are asked: ”How would you prefer to manage your food waste?” You can only tick one of five options – one of which involves composting. Without further explanation of ‘food waste composters’, this is unhelpful as everyone knows that non- vegetable waste attract rats to compost bins.
There is, however, a useful page on options for encouraging recycling. Although one does wonder why some of these have not been implemented already.
And one page has a space for you to answer: ”Do you have any ideas of how we could make further savings from the waste and recycling budgets…?” Y ou have been asked…
The survey/consultation comes with a supporting 74-page document – this turns out to be a 2014 Government paper “Energy from waste – a guide to the debate.”
So, presumably that is the way Wiltshire Council wants or believes it needs to go. But it is a fearful read!
The survey/consultation can be found here. Printed copies are available in libraries.
