Speaking to letsrecycle.com yesterday, LARAC chair Lee Marshall said that England's 27% recycling rate for 2005/06 was a “great” achievement by local authorities (see letsrecycle.com story).
– Lee Marshall, LARAC
However, the chair of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee expressed concern that the national press was ignoring the success of recycling and its environmental and financial benefits.
Mr Marshall claimed that negative press over microchips in bins, different recycling schemes in different areas and recycling officer's salaries were undermining the work of local authorities.
Only last week, the Daily Mail criticised recycling for leading to a “rubbish-recycling jobs bonanza.”
Mr Marshall said: “The trouble is the press is picking up the concerns of a very small minority who aren't the norm but are exceptions. When you look at the figures from WRAP the majority of people are happy with recycling and recycling schemes.”
“We've really got some momentum going now,” he said. “The last thing we want is for it to be quashed by unbalanced reporting.”
Balanced
LARAC's chair said that the press could be a “force of good” in explaining why householders should recycle through a balanced argument,
He suggested: “People need to know why recycling is important. Perhaps we need to start looking at recycling in terms of climate change, which is a concern in the press in the moment, to push it further up the public agenda.”
“Madness”
In the Daily Mail's article, East Riding council was criticised for offering a salary of 24,708 to a community composting officer, which the paper said was 7,000 more than a newly qualified teacher, which it called “recycling madness.”
The paper quoted Mark Pritchard, Conservative MP for The Wrekin, who said: “This planet will not be saved by creating a new army of highly paid public sector environmental titles. The money would be better spent on projects such as reducing fly tipping and introducing incentives to recycle.”
The paper said that local authority recycling officers had “landed” council taxpayers with bills of 20 million a year.
However, LARAC insisted that recycling officers worked hard for their money and said that the press had ignored jobs in recycling which were paid less.
Mr Marshall, who is also a recycling officer for Powys county council, said: “Working in recycling is far from a cushy number and you are placed in the front line dealing with the public, crews, large budgets and a variety of resources.
“People become recycling officers because they are passionate about the environment and want to make a positive difference. No one comes in for an easy life,” he added.
Evaluation
LARAC pointed out that the majority of councils operated a “Job Evaluation” or “single Status” programme that established equal salary levels according to skills and responsibilities, which they said “makes a mockery” of the claim that councils were “creating a new army of highly paid public-sector environmental titles.”
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The committee also pointed out that under the Landfill Directive, the UK will be eligible for massive fines if it does not reduce the amount of biodegradable waste it sends to landfill by 2010.
Mr Marshall said: “The fines that the UK faces if we fail to meet our recycling targets will be huge – recycling officers are a key part of ensuring that we can avoid this additional cost by encouraging people to recycle more.”
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