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Councillors unanimously backed a motion submitted by Councillor Gary Cowan
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Council signs up to recycling charter

By Jon Nurse
July 30, 2012

People can discover if their rubbish travels to Bracknell, Bangladesh or Beijing, following a council commitment to reveal where your recycling is going.

Wokingham Borough Council adopted the End Destinations of Recycling Charter at its full council meeting on Thursday .

Councillors unanimously backed a motion submitted by Councillor Gary Cowan, which will require an annual report to be filed detailing the end destination of the borough’s recycling.

Cllr Cowan said: “I hope this could make a difference of five per cent to the borough’s recycling.”

In his address to the meeting, Cllr Cowan quoted the results of a Resource Association survey, which found that 73 per cent of people don’t know where the materials they put out for recycling go and 32 per cent would be more or much
more likely to recycle if this information was available.

Cllr Cowan said: “I had feedback from councillors canvassing during the election that people were asking why they can’t recycle certain items. If we find out where it goes to we can educate people of the real benefits of recycling.”

Cllr Angus Ross, executive member for environment, said: “We encourage residents and businesses to recycle and therefore have a duty to keep them up to date with the end result.”

Cllr Ross said recycling had increased by 32 per cent in the borough and 21 per cent less was being sent to landfill, two statistics that more
than doubled the council’s forecast.

Cllr Rob Stanton, who sits on the re3 board, the waste and recycling partnership between Bracknell Forest, Reading and Wokingham borough councils and the Waste Recycling Group, promised to encourage partnering councils to join the charter.

Information on recycling from the current financial year will be available in June 2013.

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Most recent user comments 3 of 3

A report like this will only serve to help the council shift the blame of not increasing the types of recycling. There are many stories of items sent for "recycling" out of the UK that just end up in landfill in another country paid to "recycle" the items. The council can then show that they are doing "all they can" to aid recycling up to a point where they can be sure it is actually being recycled. And this all sounds a fair aim, but instead of wasting our money on this blame shifting exercise, the council could be campaigning to national government to increase the amount of recycling facilities available in this country so we actually know how our "recycling" actually gets recycled.

I agree that there is no point in our government (of any colour) saying "we will recycle X% by 2015", when they actually mean "someone else has been tasked with working out how we can meet this target, and if they don't, it's their fault". They must help them achieve the target. If they don't, all councils can do is spin the current figures a bit and then resort to limiting the amount of waste we can actually throw away. This we already see in our Blue Bag scheme and wasting our money collecting half the amount of recycling twice as often.

That's politics for you. All talk, much blame shifting, little action.

I don't believe these figures either. How much has the waste thrown away at Rivermead and Longshot Lane increased in this time? I've certainly seen an increase in fly tipping (eg the mattress that's been at the start of Rectory Road for 2 weeks). It's all spin because we have to show the figures are being met, even though nothing has *really* changed for the better at all.

mavdo, Wokingham
30/07/2012 at 15:23

Recycling up 32% Rubbish down 21%. Based on figures optained under Freedom of Information at, pre April the split was 14% Recycling 14% Green Waste and 72% Landfill. I do not trust the coucils figures they do not make any sence. The council should produce actual numbers is Total amount recycled/Total amount of Green Waste and Total amount of Landfill waste in Kgs. So we can know what is the actual data. Ofcouse Other questions Has the total amount of waste and recycling reduced or remained that same? Has flytipping reduced or increased? Has the amount of waste delivered to the Smallmead and Longshott lane increase? I would also expect these figures to charge by the end of the year as people run out of Blue Sacks and have to buy additional sacks, or has the council stopped this charge

WasteAccountant.me, Reading/Wokingham
30/07/2012 at 14:30

“I had feedback from councillors canvassing during the election that people were asking why they can’t recycle certain items. If we find out where it goes to we can educate people of the real benefits of recycling.”

Someone point me in the right direction as I don't get this. From the story, I read that 'annual report to be filed detailing the end destination of the borough’s recycling'. So this will be the paper, plastic bottles, aerosols, glass, green waste, batteries, white goods, tetra paks, paint, oil. This will NOT include things like yoghurt pots, non-bottle plastics..... i.e. the things that the electorate raised during the election canvassing.

What's the cost of signing up to this charter, and what benefits are there? How many hours of WBC employee time will be used to crunch the numbers and prepare the annual report? Are residents likely to read the report and act upon it? Is the idea to build a larger recycling market in the UK so that exporting is not our only option? I recycle because it's a no brainer. I don't need an annual report. Is this another expensive reporting exercise? What's the point?