The news is that there's a big hole in the ground at Mont Cuet. In 2015 or thereabouts, it's not just going to be full, it's going to be a big hill made of rubbish.
The response the States has made to this, and the response that the media seem to be concentrating their attention on, is how much of this stuff we can recycle. We now have a target to recycle 50% of our waste by 2010 - that's an awful lot when I think about the occasional carrier bag I recycle compared with the 40 litre bin sacks I give the bin men.
The Education Department has done its bit by launching a web site (which I can't find...) and teaching programme devoted to extolling the virtues of recycling - the theory being that if parents won't recycle on their own, then perhaps their dewy-eyed children can guilt them into doing it. In the words of said children, interviewed on Radio Guernsey earlier this week, recycling is basically morally right and 'makes the world a tidy place', whilst not recycling is generally evil.
That's hopelessly naive of course, but then they are only children emerging from their first indoctrination into the received wisdom about recycling. On the other hand, we also had Martin Ozanne insisting that recycling will help us 'stop burning up the atmosphere'.
It's comments like this last one which give off bad smells, suggesting there might be something rotten at the core of a debate which is going on amongst deputies more worried about an election in 2008 than they are about a missed target in 2010 or an overflowing tip in 2015.
What's going to sink the recycling target is that much of the burden of the cost of recycling falls on those who chose to recycle, and the States shows no inclination of alleviating this problem by, for example, offering island-wide kerbside collection.
For businesses, there is absolutely nil incentive to recycle when it's cheaper for them just to send the stuff to the tip. And how could they recycle if they wanted to? Window repairers, for example, cannot recycle old glass, simply because it won't fit through the holes in the green bins.
But then why do we have this 50% target anyway? At the root of this target seems to be the fallacy which the island's schoolchildren are being indoctrinated with: That recycling is an inherently good thing, an end in itself in fact.
Recycling is only one of the three Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle - and the last one at that. What are we doing about the first two? How are we persuading Marks and Spencer to stop wrapping every individual steak in a foil and plastic tray with extra cardboard wrapping? How do I get my jam jar back to the manufacturer so he can put more jam in it? Why are we still churning out millions of non-recyclable milk cartons every year, instead of using our much-vaunted milk distribution network to issue re-usable bottles? Why do supermarkets insist on issuing plastic bags at the checkouts?
The evidence that recycling is going to save the environment just isn't there. We do not have any foreseeable shortage of the raw materials to make paper or glass or even aluminium, but we do have shortages of the fresh water, energy and labour it takes to recycle them. And recycling most certainly will not stop the atmosphere from burning up, especially if we all have to individually drive to and from the recycling bins to do it!
If we are really serious about the three Rs, and prologing the life of Mont Cuet, then we need policies to tackle all three, not just recycling. The answer is sensible recycling and reuse schemes, which have proven environmental benefit. And these should be funded by increasing tipping charges (again) and, critically, charging individuals, households and businesses according to the volume of refuse they leave on the kerb.
Sadly this means replacing the warm fuzzy feeling of pointless recycling with a grim future of wheelie bins and bigger rubbish bills. But we really want to save the planet, right?
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4 comments:
No Impact Man recently posted about a question he was asked WHY BOTHER?
I personally reduce, reuse and recycle everything that I can but I am with you on this one that it doesn't really matter what we as individuals do until we can get governments on board totally.
I believe that manufacturers will not voluntarily change the way that they package their merchandise until forced to do so.
Look what happened when Mars wanted to use rennet in their production process for chocolate. The public outcry was so great that they had to change their minds. Until the shoppers say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH with packaging then nothing will change.
Mars kept using rennet in their production process for chocolate, just not Mars bars or Snickers anymore. It was a bit of a PR set-up, to be honest.
Going to university in the UK, one of the things I have discovered is how much more recycling and government support of it goes on here. It's a pity that Guernsey hasn't yet followed suit.
A question that must also be asked in the light of recent English reports, is how much of our recycling is actually being recycled? & what proportion is being dumped due to a combination of over-eager recyclers and poor sorting? This figure (if it exists) should be factored into recycling percentages.
I look forward to island wide kerb side collection, it appears that many other nations are able to achieve what we cannot.
It would also be a great start if the island's supermarkets got together and agreed to go away with the carrier bag in its entirety. Alternatively a bag tax should be imposed, after all they are filling up our hole in the ground, why shouldn't they contribute to its cost?
Guernsey Blogger,
One might have thought we could achieve kerbside collection quite a bit more easily than most European countries, considering Guernsey's high population density.
I'm not that keen on a carrier bag tax because of the administrative cost. Countries that have a bag tax usually do it not to reduce landfill, but because bags get blown about easily and are a major eyesore when caught up in trees and hedges. Since we don't have this problem too badly in Guernsey, it's just not worth it.
In my view, attention directed at plastic bags is more often than not generated by supermarkets themselves in order to divert attention away from all the other myriad forms of disposable packaging on the products they sell. Of course we could also start introducing plastic bottle tax, polystyrene tray tax, breakfast cereal liner tax... you get the drift!
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