To Paul Bayliss
Leader of Derby City Council
30 April, 2013

Dear Paul

We wrote to you on the 22nd of March asking you what impact the proposal to charge for collection of the brown bins might have upon the city greenhouse gas emissions. The reply from the council officer did not address this issue directly (all he could do was refer to the savings due to the reduction of refuse vehicles).

The council has accepted it has a civic duty, which is not just to the people of Derby, to minimise the emission of greenhouse gases, due the threat of Global Warming. With reference to the City Council proposal to stop recycling in parts of Abbey, Arboretum, Mackworth and Normanton wards we once again want to know what impact scrapping these recycling collections will have on greenhouse gas emissions.

Regardless of this assessment we are concerned that abandoning recycling for some areas will give the wrong message to residents in Derby, undoing much good work that has been done. By giving a mixed message to people in Derby it will probably also impact negatively in other areas too.

We are concerned that there appears to be no provision of additional ‘bring’ sites in these areas for people who want to continue recycling.

The proposed changes are said to be virtually cost neutral and we are therefore completely opposed to the reducing recycling facilities available in the four wards. Any decision to scrap recycling in these areas now is premature given that the impact of going to a single blue recycling bin in June should make things much easier to manage. In addition having different waste management systems in different areas will make it more difficult for the Council to get the message over and for friends and neighbours to support each other in getting people to understand how the system should work.

Furthermore we deplore any attempt to blame the residents of those areas, noting that other areas of terraced housing are not being treated similarly. This is economical and environmental segregation of the worst kind and is likely to foster a discussion which leads to criticising and blaming residents instead of taking a responsibility for educating and managing problems.

Yours sincerely

Reg Hand

Secretary Derby Climate Coalition

634 Nottingham Rd

Derby

DE21 6SX

Copied to all councillors; members of the press.