Following the UK’s coldest December, in at least my living memory, there has been a melange of logistical problems the length and breadth of the country. One area of notable concern is the waste collection, or rather the lack of, over our holiday season.
Where I live in Birmingham, the residential pavements are littered with black bags of general waste, some have their contents spewing out over the road due to a hungry fox or two. As unpleasant as this is, who is really to blame for it? Environmental services in their large vehicles certainly couldn’t drive up my road due to the ice and snow. Irritable householders have inundated councils with complaints; is it not our right to have our rubbish taken away on time in the early hours? Out of sight out of mind is perhaps what we are used to. However the mounting piles of rubbish now serve as an unpleasant reminder to the sometimes obscene level of consumption that we have, particularly over the Christmas period. Buying desirable goods may be seen as good for the economy (the recession has for now curbed growth in our consumption) but as waste correlates with GDP then globally, fast developing countries will only perpetuate this rate of consumption.
So what is the answer? Self-sufficiency? Not always practical. Use fewer natural resources? Not possible with a growing population. Training and education? Possibly. Environmental groups, councils, Government et al are heavily reminding us of the importance of recycling and environmental awareness but we as a population seem to have hit the point of saturation. Our rate of action does not match up. Agreed that product design has a large part to play in limiting waste. However as the huge number of black bags I have seen demonstrates (note – outside 4 semi-detached houses I roughly counted 37) the premise of limiting our waste and fully recycling all that can be recycled is not getting through. Less than half of materials in the UK are currently recycled, but that reduces to 15% if you include all the material that enters the UK, including food.
So let’s try to use the piling rubbish as a wake-up call, for us, the companies and the powers that be. The Government can introduce regulation on material ‘recyclability’ and demand better training for those that need it. We can aim our complaints not at the end-of-chain collection companies but to the source, the wasteful production organisation and exercise our right to choose a recycled product and together we can reduce our consumption, our rate of use of natural resources and our waste sent to landfill.
When the weather turns as it surely will in the future, it will also keep our pavements and roads clearer.
By Tim Davies | Righttrack’s Environmental Advisor