Recycling - the facts

When is recycling not recycling?

When it's garden waste composting! The Conservative-run Borough Council would have you believe that Guildford had the highest recycling rate in Surrey during 2005/6, at 32.5%. Unfortunately it's not that simple. Guildford's real recycling rate was 25%, with green garden waste collected for composting making up the other 7.5%.

The real recycling rate is the percentage of our household waste that is kept out of the black refuse sacks. The paper, card, glass, tins and cans collected from the kerbside in the green and purple boxes are diverted from landfill, which should be our real aim to help our environment and continue our fight against waste incineration.

In that context, 25% is less impressive. Guildford came second in the county on that measure, with more councils looking set to overtake us next year. Collecting plastic bottles borough-wide, which the Conservatives have finally agreed to do after several years of Lib Dem pressure, will help a little but not enough.

The garden waste collection service is excellent. It helps those who can't easily compost that waste at home, it reduces garden bonfires, and it reduces all those individual car journeys to deposit garden waste at Civic Amenity sites. What it doesn't do is take much waste out of the black sacks and so out of landfill.

The sort of composting that would make a real difference to our environment is composting the kitchen food waste that makes up a quarter of the average household's black sack. When that ends up in landfill, the greenhouse gas methane is produced as it rots, contributing to climate change.

Unfortunately the Conservatives have let us down on this for years. Conservative-controlled Surrey County Council has failed to provide the closed-vessel composting facilities needed to compost food waste. Now Conservative-controlled Guildford Borough Council has once again refused a Liberal Democrat proposal to include funding for a trial food waste collection in the Council's financial plan.

Cllr Liz Hogger suggested at the Borough's Environment Scrutiny Committee last week that a trial in 2007/8, using out-of-county composting facilities if necessary, would help plan for full-scale collection the following year. This was opposed by all the Conservatives and rejected on the casting vote of the Chairman, and instead the Committee feebly agreed to request financial provision for collection of food waste 'once suitable provision for the disposal of such waste has been made.' In other words we are to be kept waiting yet again for the County Council to get its act together.

With the Stern Report on climate change showing clearly the devastating economic consequences of failure to act, the time for such procrastination has passed. It's time to commit to serious action to improve the real recycling rate.