Recycling Old News (From Watford Observer)

Recycling Old News

4:04pm Saturday 9th May 2009

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Elsewhere on this site there is a recent story by Filip Hnizdo about Hertsmere Council disputing a `misleading` recycling report which basically puts them near the bottom of the recycling league for councils, a position that they seem to have occupied for the last 10 years whilst coming near the top of the recycling excuses for not recycling league for councils.

Just to make sure I typed `Hertsmere recycling` into the search engine and came up with 189 entries on the topic, not many of which seemed to be praising our green leaders

Now I take an interest as we pay a not unsubstantial amount each year to Hertsmere in the form of Business Rates, Residential Rates & Licence fees, to put it into perspective it`s the equivalent of handing over 2 days takings every month.

This years increase in Business Rates was about 3.89%, you might say Hertsmere are one of the few local organisations who`ve been brave enough to increase their prices in the current economic climate.

We could hand over more if we chose to have Hertsmere collect our rubbish, it would actually save us a considerable amount of money each year v going with a private company however Hertsmere don`t offer a recycling service for businesses.

Instead we choose to pay to use a private company and separate out our general waste from recyclables eg cardboard & paper and bottles, each year the private company has increased fees by an average of 15% to cover the increased costs of landfill sites & landfill taxes.

Now I wonder what could be filling up those landfill sites ?

You see though The Government sets targets & financial rewards to encourage local authorities to recycle residential waste there are no targets & financial rewards for recycling business waste.

So where do you think it all this waste and recyclable material ends up ?

Have a think about it and maybe reflect on this…..If it doesn`t get measured it doesn`t get done.

Until central Government targets local authorities on recycling waste from businesses it will all just end up in a hole in the ground.

But to end on a more positive note the good news is Gordon & Alisdair have come up with a scheme to help small businesses whereby in exchange for spending a day filling in forms I can apply to have 4% of the increase in Business Rates deferred for 2 years.

Note not 4% of the business rates…… 4% of this years increase,which in my case equates to about £19.

I`m tempted to go for it and maybe stick the £19 in an Icelandic bank and live off the interest.