The latest Labour leaflet asks 'Why are we waiting for garden waste bins?'
Yet the Labour candidate knows very well. She attended the Council's Scrutiny Committee meeting on 10th October 2007 when the all party working group's proposals for the new recycling strategy were presented by its Lib Dem chair. The report received unanimous support. In other words, she voted for it!
Putting the strategy into practice takes time. First there was a consultation through the Reporter, from which residents gave overwhelming support to the strategy. Then new contracts had to be prepared and tenders had to be sought and submitted.
Now the contract for the first part - extending the kerbside collection of dry recyclable material to include plastic bottles and cardboard - has been signed and the new service will start before the end of June. That is exactly on schedule and within budget. The strategy Labour supported specified this stage should be introduced in the first half of 2009.
The second stage, to be introduced later in the year, is the separate weekly collection of food waste. Food waste accounts for around 20% of the contents of grey bins at the moment.
With the extra dry recyclables collections plus the weekly food waste collection, it will be possible to reduce the residual waste in the grey bins to less than half what it used to be.
That was the 'trigger point' - requested by Labour and agreed by all parties - at which the resources used to collect the grey bins weekly could be switched to alternate weekly collection of grey bins and garden waste in new brown bins. So, Labour, you'll get your garden waste collection before the end of this year - exactly according to the strategy you voted for!
(The picture, copyright Newcastle Liberal Democrats 2007, shows Lib Dem councillors checking out a type of vehicle that could be used for the weekly collection of food waste in the front part plus a collection of either residual or garden waste in the rear part.)
