Put reuse before recycling, says Green Party

Speaking at the event in Coventry, Cllr Duckworth, who is deputy leader of the Green Party and a councillor on Dudley metropolitan borough council, told the audience, I just wanted to share something with you, I dont like recycling.

Now, thats not to say I think that people should throw things away. Its that recycling should be the last resort and that throwing things away should never happen.

Stressing the need for waste minimisation, Cllr Duckworth went on to argue in favour of the return of a deposit system and reuse of containers and for a rethink of economic growth and the consequent increase in waste.

On deposit systems, he argued: Recycling should be almost the last resort for packaging The older system, similar to many still used to good effect across Europe, is better than the one in place today after all, collecting, washing and re-filling bottles on a large scale is better than smashing them and turning them into new ones and miles better than dumping old ones and making new ones from scratch.

Growth

And, turning to economic growth, he noted: When we talk about waste, there is something very serious hovering in the background, and it has to do with a political and economic buzzword, growth. Now, at first, the word growth seems to be positive: plants grow, and thats a good thing; animals grow, and thats a good thing too. And economics grow, and surely thats a good thing too?

Except that at the moment we are told that the UK economy is growing, yet times are still hard for individuals, for businesses, for faminiles, for everyone it seems, except those few who already owned multi-million pound London properties.

Cllr Duckworth went on to call for a strategic re-think, to get back to why an economy is important so that everyone can benefit from what is produced. And included in that is that if we change our economy, if we make use of what already exists, we produce less waste.

He concluded by calling for more repair of products saying that while creating new products created jobs, jobs are also created by repairing things reduce, repair, reuse, and only then if you have to, recycle.

Cllr Duckworth praised the Zero Waste Award winners who were attending the recognition luncheon. The Awards, sponsored by Saica-Natur and Wastecare, recognise performance in moving away from landfill with factors such as increased recycling and reuse taken on board by the judges.

At the event, held last week andwhich is organised by letsrecycle.com, the following were recognised for their success:

Bronze Winners

Advetec UK; CMS SupaTrak; WRAP; Yorkshire Water.

Silver Winners

Abingdon Flooring Aramark for BP Aberdeen; Barhale Trant Utilities; Carlsberg UK with Cory Environmental Recycling Services;
Echo Northern Ireland; Forbo Flooring Systems; Recycle for Greater Manchester;
The Harvey Shopping Centre; Maple Leaf with Biffa; Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority;
MITIE and Network Rail; Printwaste Recycling & Shredding;
Suzanne James Catering London; The Chantry Centre;
White Lion Walk Shopping Centre; University of York.

Gold Winners

Burnt Tree Vehicle Rental; Carpet Recycling UK; Croydon Council;
MITIE and Dr.Reddy Laboratories; lan Hair Design; GRAHAM Construction;
KP Snacks; Plastic Surgeon; RPS Total Resuse CIC; and Windles Group