Earlier this month, Labour published a dossier ahead of the General Election criticising the Conservative's commitment to provide funding for the re-introduction of weekly waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story) – claiming it was as yet uncosted.
“Central funding will be offered for all councils to provide a weekly collection of organic waste, as well as comprehensive recycling collections”, he added.
However, responding to the Labour document, the Conservatives said that the money to support weekly rubbish collections would come from within existing council budgets – rather than from central government. The party declined to say how much this would cost.
Speaking exclusively to letsrecycle.com, shadow minister for local government Bob Neill said: “Conservatives believe that decent and regular rubbish collections are a vital front-line council service to help protect the local environment and public health. We reject Labour's approach of state bin bullying, cutting bin services and new bin taxes.
He added: “We will reconfigure existing local government funding to support weekly collections, as opposed to the current state guidance and funding regime which pushes fortnightly collections.”
The Daily Mail has led a campaign of opposition to councils moving from weekly collections of residual waste to alternate weekly collections (AWC) of waste and recycling, claiming that there is “overwhelming opposition”.
However, while there have been some teething problems in some parts of the country, this method of collection has helped to significantly increase recycling rates – with the top 10 performing councils in England for recycling and composting in 2008/09 all using AWC.
The government has stressed that it is not in favour of one particular collection route and the decision is left to councils to make at a local level.
The Conservatives said that if they come to power, the choice would still remain with councils.
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