9:10am Wednesday 10th May 2006
By Margaret Smith
PATRICIA Birchley is a convert to recycling and believes she manages to recycle or compost 60 per cent of her waste.
The county councillor had to be once she became a member of the council's joint waste committee which has the job of getting us all to recycle more and chuck out less.
She said: "In the past we used to have overflowing bins every week, but now never.
"I have been converted. You have to be disciplined, but once you have got into a good habit it's easy to maintain," she said.
Patricia, who represents Chiltern Ridge on Buckinghamshire County Council, showed how it's done.
In the kitchen she has a green box called a kitchen caddy, supplied by the council. In it goes all the stuff from the kitchen that can be turned into compost: apple cores, potato peel, tea bags, egg shells, soft cardboard, cereal packets and even dust from the vacuum cleaner.
All this is biodegradable and if it goes into the wheelie bin and then to the tip it breaks down and creates methane gas which is a greenhouse gas. Much better to turn the rubbish into compost at home.
What does go in the compost bin will break down and form wonderful waste to put on the flower beds.
Back outside the house are three black crates. One takes bottles and is emptied by the district council once a month. A second takes plastic bottles and metal cans and is collected once every two weeks, as is the crate for waste paper.
Back in the kitchen and under the sink is the container for the items that cannot be composted or recycled, such as laminated milk cartons, plastic soup cartons and bones. All this has to go into the wheelie bin. Patricia also keeps plastic supermarket bags all of which can be reused to wrap stuff in and avoid the need to buy cling film and the like.
The cost of getting rid of household waste in Bucks will be a major financial problem for council tax payers over the next 25 years, costing £100 million, says the leader of Buckinghamshire County Council, David Shakespeare.
The county's 500,000 people produce 275,000 tonnes of rubbish each year and recycle or compost 38.6 per cent of it one of the best rates in the country.
Recycling 80 per cent is possible, but too expensive, so the aim is to get to 50 per cent by 2011 and then move onto Phase Two.
Phase Two will mean building one or more high tech plants to treat what cannot be recycled to reduce its volume.
Plants which use mechanical sorting, biological treatment, incineration, or heat treatment to cut waste volume will cost a lot to build and run but still less than the fines imposed by the Government and EU for not meeting waste reduction targets.
The decisions about what, how and where plants should be built in Bucks, will have to be made by the end of the year. The work will take years to commission, but the council wants the plants running as soon as possible.
l Next Tuesday, May 9, people who don't produce their own compost at home and would like some free for their gardens can go along to High Heavens in Clay Lane, Booker where the council is holding a compost takeway day, from 11am to 7pm.
Gardeners should bring their own bags, spade and gloves.
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