At February’s full council meeting I asked the question ‘what is the cost of the food waste component of non recycling waste refuse collections in Woking?’ I was told that the cost is dependent on the number of properties visited and not the weight of collection.  I was also told that the cost of sending waste to landfill is going up.  What I wasn’t told is how much waste we send to landfill.  Once I found this out, I was able to calculate how much it will actually cost Woking this year not to have implemented food waste recycling.  My calculations are estimates, based on the fact that Guildford Borough Council, one of the areas to pilot food waste recycling have increased their recycling rate by nearly 20 percent through the introduction of food waste collection.  If Woking was able to do the same, with the increase in the cost of landfill tax and the reduction we could make in waste sent to landfill, the actual cost of implementing food waste collection is approximately a third less than the estimated £660,000 that the Conservatives have decided to put off spending.  

It wouldn’t be so bad if this didn’t mean that this summer the people of Woking will again suffer stinking bins caused by bi-weekly collections rather than weekly food waste collections enjoyed by their neighbours in Guildford and Elmbridge.  Woking is proud of its record on recycling yet we are falling behind other local councils.  I hope that the Conservative executive makes the right decision and progresses towards weekly food waste recycling collection in 2010.  If they don’t they will find that not only do bins smell, our recycling rate will be lower than our neighbours rather than higher than our neighbours and we will be spending half a million pounds on landfill tax rather than food waste collection.  Surely that is a stink worth avoiding!