SACKS DECISION PULLED FORWARD

PLANS to change from black boxes to recycling sacks will be considered at an urgent executive meeting tomorrow.

Originally planned for Thursday, September 24, the recycling debate has been moved forward to 7pm on Friday.

Cllr Clive Jones, Liberal Democrat lead for environment, said he was very pleased the council brought the decision-making meeting forward.

He told Wokingham.Today: “They (the ruling Conservatives) got themselves in such a mess and tangle when they didn’t put all of the information in the meeting on July 30.

“I think they hoped to just order the sacks straight afterwards.”

In July, the council’s executive agreed to set aside funding for the purchase of thewaterproof recycling bags.

The decision was called-in due to concerns over the decision making process, and potential breaches of the constitution.

It was reviewed by the overview and scrutiny committee who agreed to uphold the decision, with six votes for and five votes against.

Tomorrow evening, the executive will be presented with more information about the plan.

If approved, procurement will take 12 to 16weeks, and another five weeks to deliver them.

Cllr Parry Batth, executive member for environment, said: “Now is the time for the council’s executive to look clearly at the issue and make a decision on it.

“Originally we were going to discuss this at the Thursday, September 24, executive meeting but we’ve brought it forward due to the urgency of the wet paper problem.”

But Cllr Jones believes the emergency meeting should have been set formid-August.

“They should have done this three weeks ago,” he said. “They should have set the date for an extraordinary executive meeting to approve the plans. And if they had set the date close to July 30, there probablywould not have been a callin.”

At the meeting, executive members will consider an independent report into recycling options, commissioned by the council in spring.

Cllr Batth added: “We are an ambitious council – wewant to get to a 70% recycling rate by 2030, something no other council in the country has done yet. Solving the wet paper problem is an important piece of that puzzle. We can’t reach our target without first getting over this hurdle.”

He added: “The proposed change has the benefit of solving the wet paper problemand having aminimal impact on our residents, allowing them to keep the great recycling and waste collection services they expect.”

Cllr Jones said he doesn’t expect the executive to debate the pros and cons of each solution cited in the Resource Futures report: recycling bags, hard lids and shower-cap style covers.

Instead, he thinks the sacks will be approved with little discussion.

“I think it's a rubber stamp job from the Conservative leadership,” he said. “There are still some outstanding questions to be asked.”

Council leader John Halsall welcomed tomorrow night’s meeting.

“We are trying to fix the damage – the call-in decision (by the Liberal Democrats) meant that we’d lost all the preparation work, which had to be thrown away. It wasn’t just paused, the call-in stopped everything,” he said.

“We hope to save residents £600,000 a year – that’s not to be sniffed at. It’s irresponsible to allow that money to be wasted and hopefully the Liberal Democrats will join us in supporting us not to waste that money.”

Hewarned that the call-in process meant that the order for the new recycling sacks had to be placed in a queue and there was no guarantee that theywould arrive in time.

“We have to get it done as soon as possible – we’ll get the wet waste problem in winter, and I suspect it will be worse than last year as recyclers will be more selective to the waste they accept.”

And Cllr Halsall scotched rumours that the sacks had already been bought.

“The bags are not sitting in a warehouse, it’s nonsense to suggest they were – I wish it were true, but it’s not. We’ve had to start from scratch.”

The change fromboxes to sacks is being suggested to solve the issue of wet paper and cardboard recycling being rejected.

Last year, changes in the European recycling market meant that wet paper and card were no longer accepted, and some truckloads were returned, costing thousands of pounds for the council.