Zero waste Camden

Reading the CNJ letters page last week I might be forgiven for thinking I actually control recycling policy at Camden Council! I don’t – more’s the pity - the Tory Executive Member for the “Environment”, Cllr Chris Knight, does. My role, as Camden Eco Champion, is to suggest ways to cut the carbon out of Camden and to highlight the environmental mistakes the council is making.

Eamon O’Sullivan writes in to say that he only recycles paper and glass because he doesn’t trust the end destination of our recycling. I know how he feels having spent the last four years trying to persuade those in power to turn our recycling system into something that actually benefits the planet rather than the other way round.

Over the next six months the council will be rolling out food waste collections to the whole borough. And starting in April paper and card will be collected separately from the rest of the recycling so that it can be sent to a British paper maker. If you want to do the best possible thing for the environment, then please make sure you put your glass in the on-street bottle banks as this goes direct to a British bottle maker.

Robin Mackay Miller expresses concern that Camden may be considering fining householders for not recycling properly, but I can reassure him that Camden has absolutely no plans to follow Conservative Barnet down the route of penalising those who don’t recycle. In my opinion the key is to make it easier for people to recycle not more unpleasant for those who don’t. I also think we have a lot to do to make our on-street recycling centres more attractive. If you make them look like rubbish bins – which ours do – then people will treat them like rubbish bins.

Making it easier for people to recycle involves a certain amount of research into what they are and are not recycling. Adam Leys questions whether council officers have the right to look through his kerbside box but remember that when your recycling is removed it gets crushed up in the back of a truck which makes it hard to analyse later. This is absolutely not about snooping on individuals - it’s about understanding what people are recycling and what they’re not so that information given out by the council about recycling can be fine tuned.

1st October 2009 was a huge day in our household because the council started collecting all types of mixed plastics not just plastic bottles. As a result there’s almost nothing that we can’t recycle. Our food waste goes into our wormery to be converted to compost. Our paper, cardboard, glass, plastic and metal go to on-street recycling centre near our house.

By next April I hope that all residents will be able to recycle almost all of their waste. Zero Waste Camden – I like the sound of that!