New Green Waste Measures Criticised

FOLLOWING the announcement that Community skips for green waste and ECO Sacks are to be axed by the district council, the leader of the council’s Lib Dems, has issued the following statement:
“At the scrutiny meeting at SODC on Monday, March 27, the ruling Tory Group rejected the Liberal Democrats policy to retain the Green Community Waste Skips for at least a year whilst the success or otherwise of the new green wheelie bin scheme is assessed.
“The green skips are very popular where they are provided and only 4,000 wheelie bins would be available in the first year which would mean SODC sending much of the waste currently put into the green skips to landfill at great expense.
“What are the other 52,000 households in South Oxfordshire who will not get a wheelie bin supposed to do with their green waste? Taking it to the main recycling centre would involve a much longer journey by car, which is very environmentally unfriendly.
“The Liberal Democrats also argued without success to keep the eco sack system that many people had purchased in good faith from SODC and collect them at the same time as the wheelie bin system. Many people do not have a place to put a wheelie bin, or are physically unable to manage pushing one about, or even do not have enough green waste to fill a bin once a fortnight. Liberal Democrats argued that we should put more effort into getting people to do more composting at home, which where it is practical is the best solution.”

David Turner
Liberal Democrat Group Leader
South Oxfordshire District Council