If the recycling sack plan is approved next month, they may not arrive until January
LAST NIGHT, the borough council scrutiny committee decided to stick with the decision to approve funding to buy recycling sacks.
But the plans to change from black boxes to to recycling sacks have not been approved. This has to wait for discussion and possible approval in at the meeting next month.
Cited by Cllr Parry Batth, executive member for environment at Wokingham Borough Council as a solution to wet waste in the borough, the sacks have an increased capacity compared to black boxes.
Cllr Batth has called the bags a short-term solution to the long term problem of managing card and paper recycling when it gets wet.
Changes in the European markets last year meant shipments of damp paper were being rejected and sent back, costing the council thousands in taxpayer money.
But the decision as to whether to buy the sacks or choose a different solution such as lids or shower cap covers has not been made.
At the scrutiny committee last night, Cllr Kaiser, executive member for finance said the council had ring-fenced the funding for the bags, but not approved their purchase. He called this good financial planning.
Cllr Doran also asked whether the July meeting was to approve funding or to approve the recycling sacks.
He said: “Why did the item voted for, specifically state the borrowing of money for the purchase of hessian sacks, surely they’re not mutually compatible.”
Cllr Kaiser said: “That’s what I was told and that’s why I asked for £288,000. If they asked for £500,000 or £200,000 I would have put that aside. That was not approval for the sacks. Allocating funds in the event the sacks were purchased.”
He suggested it was an issue of semantics.
Cllr Doran said if the item had been written correctly, “none of us would be here”.
Cllr Clive Jones, Liberal Democrat lead for the environment, said the council had not planned appropriately. He asked why the decision had been left to the summer when the executive was aware of the issue for approximately 10 months.
He said it was the Conservative councillors that had delayed the plan.
If approved next month, the bags will take between 12 and 16 weeks to be procured and an additional five weeks to be delivered. This could mean the bags are not in use until January.
And would mean that months of rain in the autumn had already impacted the council, again costing it thousands.
