Labour Councillors want to "fight to bring back weekly rubbish collections" in Pendle, apparently with the backing of their Conservative Colleagues on the Council.

Such a so called "popular" move, an attempt to gain more votes, would be wrong in principle for both environmental and economic reasons. If this policy was implemented it would discourage residents from recycling and reducing their waste. It would mean that more refuse would be dumped in landfill sites, which will soon be full. Do we want to see an incinerator in Pendle which is one of the alternatives to landfill?

In a worst case scenario, where there are only weekly refuse rounds (and no green bin/box collections), national surveys of the black/grey wheelie bins revealed that the average bin is made up of the following percentage of items: Paper & Card: 25%; Kitchen Waste: 22.5%; Garden Rubbish: 16.9%; Mixed Rubbish: 13.3%; Glass: 9%; Plastic: 7.2%; Metal: 3.6%; Textiles: 2.5%.

Obviously Pendle would never sink that low as we do have fortnightly green box and green bin (for those with gardens) collections. But we would definitely see an increase in recyclable, reusable and compostable items being treated as waste, which would have a detrimental impact on the environment and contribute to a further rise in climate change CO2 emissions.

The cost of reintroducing such a weekly scheme would be astronomical - nearly £3/4 Million per annum at April 2007 prices., which would be equivalent to an average increase of 13% on the Council Tax Bill. Surely, Pendle Borough Council cannot seriously be considering such a plan. We have had enough criticsm already from Labour and Conservative Councillors over the setting of the Council tax when it was a Lib-Dem controlled Council. Unless there were drastic cuts to other essential Services, there would be uproar if the Council Tax was increased by such an amount.

The Council is already committed to an environmental action programme, as a Partner of the new Lancashire Local Area Agreement, when it adopted 6 Environmental out of a total of 35 Indicators. These 6 include National Indicator No 192: to recycle and compost more household waste. If Pendle BC gives into this populist demand, it will be in danger of non-compliance with its own policy - what a waste!

Let us keep things as they are. Residents should be encouraged to make better use of the existing service and improve our commitment to the 3Rs - Recycle, Reuse and Reduce.

David Penney Colne Columnist Green Guru!