There is a clear choice in this election
Caroline Spelman MP
Their comments come after the shadow secretary of state for communities and local government, Caroline Spelman hit out at Labour and Liberal Democrat waste plans.
In a statement issued yesterday (April 25), Mrs Spelman claimed that there was “overwhelming evidence” that Labour was planning to “hit family homes with bin taxes and new wave of bin cuts” – a move which she said was supported by the Liberal Democrats.
She added that the Liberal Democrats were also rolling out monthly rubbish collections in line with advice from the government's “bin quango”, the Waste & Resources Action Programme – giving Liberal Democrat and SNP-run Fife council as an example.
She said: “If Gordon Brown can cling to power, his bin bullies will impose monthly rubbish collections and make life even harder for hard-working families. Liberal Democrats back Gordon Brown's plans for bin taxes and monthly collections, despite the extra fly-tipping and backyard burning.”
“There is a clear choice in this election: Conservatives who will help bring back weekly collections, Labour who imposed fortnightly collections, or Liberal Democrats who are already forcing through monthly bin collections.”
Labour
Mrs Spelman's criticism of Labour's policy centred on two reports looking at the feasibility of landfill bans by WRAP (see letsrecycle.com story) and the Green Alliance (see letsrecycle.com story). The Conservatives said that these both suggested that there was minimal effect from landfill bans alone and that charging schemes might be needed alongside them, and that residual waste should not be collected more than once every fortnight to minimise arisings.
However, speaking to letsrecycle.com today, a Labour spokesman stressed that it believed decisions on local waste collections, including their frequency, should be taken locally by councils and that they were best placed to understand local needs..
And, he queried how the Conservative pledge to help re-introduce weekly rubbish collections would be funded. In January, the Conservatives said this would come from existing council budgets, but failed to go into any more detail (see letsrecycle.com story).
The spokesman said: “The Conservatives have been committed since 2008 to providing central funding for councils to provide weekly rubbish collections. However, they have yet to set out how much they think this would cost.”
Lib Dem
The Liberal Democrats meanwhile confirmed that the party was planning “give councils the power to introduce variable waste charging”. However, they pointed out that this was one option to help incentivise people to recycle.
And, with regards to fortnightly collections, the party stressed that many Conservative-run councils such as Wiltshire, Bexley, Runnymede, Daventry had already moved to the scheme in a bid to save council taxpayers money.
A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “Councils led by all the main parties that are trying to incentivize people to recycle and reduce waste going to landfill so less tax payer's money goes on landfill tax and so that we reduce the need to build massive new landfill sites near people's homes.”
Fife
Fife council added that, contrary to the Conservative Party's claims, it had never introduced monthly collections of residual waste – even on a trial basis – and that it was only something which the council had discussed as an option.
Fraser Thomson, head of environmental services at the council, said: “We are in the process of introducing a new waste collection service which from our recent trials is producing a recycling rate in excess of 65%. This new service allows householders to recycle all their cans and plastics, food and garden waste, paper and cardboard. The landfill waste is collected in a smaller bin which is emptied every two weeks. The two bins for cans, plastics, paper and cardboard are emptied every four weeks. So far the customer satisfaction rate with the new service is 90%”.
Quality of Life
Caroline Spelman's comments came ahead of the Conservative Party launching a 'Quality of Life' manifesto today (April 26). The manifesto reiterated the party's plans to encourage councils to pay people to recycle and putting a floor under the standard rate of landfill tax until 2020, as outlined in its manifesto earlier this month (see letsrecycle.com story) .
The manifesto was published after the Labour Party and Liberal Democrats yesterday both launched manifestoes focused exclusively on the environment (see letsrecycle.com story).
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