Tories reject proposal to increase recycling

12.54.20pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 17th Jul 2007

Conservatives at Essex County Council have rejected a call to increase recycling targets across Essex. At a meeting of the council today (17 July), the Liberal Democrats group proposed that the council sets ambitious and firm recycling targets which the Conservatives voted against.

Cllr Ian Gale, Liberal Democrats spokesman on waste management said; "It is disappointing that the Conservatives have taken the view that they will not encourage higher recycling rates in Essex. We are told that it is because it becomes too expensive to deal with too much recycled material, but the investment required to recycle more is much smaller than the billions of pounds that the Conservatives are looking at spending on building and operating waste disposal plants in the county.

"We are not convinced that the Conservative's current 30 year plan for dealing with waste, in the form of it's PFI bid to government, is flexible enough to deal with changing technology over the coming years. We are sure that the people of Essex will be as confused as we are, as to why the Conservatives cannot look for resources to put into increasing recycling, but are willing to commit £3.5b towards building huge waste disposal plants."

ENDS