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Oxford City Council says Yes
to recycling, no to
incineration
At the Oxford City Council
meeting on Monday 26 June a timetable was announced for the
introduction of improvements to Oxford's waste and recycling. A motion
was passed reaffirming the City's opposition to burning household
waste in an incinerator by the County Council. The motion also
called on the County to provide municipal composting for
food waste. Oxford Friends of the Earth welcomed the initiatives.
Councillor Jean Fooks, Portfolio holder for a Cleaner City said that
the collection of garden waste and cardboard in Oxford, as a city wide
scheme, would start in September 2006; and that the proposed changes to
refuse
and recycling collections including weekly recycling collections and
bi-weekly refuse collections would start in October 2006 to be rolled
out fully by April 2007.
A motion was adopted re-affirming the City
Council's opposition to the
use of incineration in the County Council's future waste strategy. The
motion comes as the Councils in Oxfordshire who form the Oxfordshire
Waste Partnership are consulting about household waste and recycling
for the
next 25 year period.
Andrew Wood, from Oxford Friends of the Earth who attended the meeting
said: "We welcome the proposed changes to improve recycling provision
in Oxford. This should substantially increase Oxford's recycling rate
from
its present 19% of household waste. The opposition to burning
Oxfordshire's waste in some kind of incinerator comes at an
important time. We need to adopt a waste strategy based on
environmental excellence, which minimises greenhouse
gas emissions and allows progressive improvements to recycling –
incineration won't deliver on this."
The full text of the motion that was passed
was as follows:
Household recycling in Oxford
This Council wishes to see a significant change in the amount of
household recycling in Oxford and urges the Portfolio Holder and
Executive Board to act urgently to deliver much higher recycling rates
(at least 45%) across the City. Council welcomes the Portfolio Holder's
intention to extend the collection of green waste and cardboard
throughout the City by September 2006. Council welcomes the news that
the detailed programme for extending the range of materials collected
will be presented to the Executive Board on July 17th and that further
information will be given to householders, as well as allowing choice
of wheeled bins, to be supplied for the residual waste, to ensure that
residents support the new scheme.
The Council reaffirms its opposition to the incineration of
waste. We call on the County Council and the Oxford Waste
Partnership to:-
a) promote waste reduction, re-use and recycling;
b) include in-vessel composting facilities, which can deal with food
waste, in the future treatment of Oxfordshire's waste;
c) to exclude incineration in the tenders for future waste treatment.
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