LETTER: The recycling crystal ball...

A couple of years ago we were told, by the experts who know about this sort of thing, that £2million a year would be saved by restricting the opening hours of our rubbish tips.

They never did tell us how much, if any, of that money was recouped but we were informed that the recycling rate had dropped, as the council itself admitted, to an abysmal level.

Of course it did; people started cramming recyclable items into their rubbish bins because they were not prepared to spend an excessive amount of time trying to access their local tips, which now had very long queues because of the shorter opening times.

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So, did the council draw a lesson from this total muck-up? Clearly not, because last week the Herald had a headline that read ‘Permits for vans and trailers at rubbish tip’, and went on to explain that West Sussex County Council is set to introduce permits for vans, pick-up trucks and trailers to reduce cross-border waste tourism.

Having groaned a loud groan I got out my trusty crystal ball, dusted it off and gazed into it. And what did I see?

I saw vans and trailers being driven into the tips, being turned away because they didn’t have permits and being driven out again, and then being fly-tipped by the roadside, their drivers having said to themselves, ‘If they think I’m taking this lot back home they have got another think coming!’.

Councillors, repeat after me: “Restrictions do not recycling make, ease of use is what it will take. Continually bringing in new rules simply makes you look like fools.”

Eric Waters

Ingleside Crescent, Lancing

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