UK DETECTOR NET Forum

This is the reply I received from a Bucks MP a couple of years ago about green waste (the detecting trip was stopped after 10 minutes due to needles and all sorts of rubbish strewn over the field)...

> Thank you for tipping me off about green waste near ****.
>
> It's worrying to hear of the situation you mention, where green waste has become contaminated with materials from other waste streams. It is obviously the case that recycling firms and local authorities should try to ensure that the materials we recycle are kept from contamination. Otherwise, as you point out in your email, it undermines the recycling procedure. It is important that the public has confidence that the materials it recycles are processed appropriately.
>
> Clearly we must reduce the amount of waste generated and make alternatives to landfill, such as recycling and re-use, more attractive. The fiscal and regulatory waste regimes need to reflect the waste hierarchy, and the Government should also pursue development of a 'Responsibility Deal', which would encourage manufacturers and retailers to cut the amount of waste produced at the point of production.
>
> A different approach should be take to recycling, in which people are given incentives to go green. In America, the Recyclebank scheme has been very effective by paying the public to recycle, and this is now being trialled by Windsor & Maidenhead Council, where people receive rewards such as M&S vouchers.
>
> Ultimately, we need a government that has a real determination to do better and not simply to carry on with the failed status quo of sending over half of our waste to landfill. We should have the ambition to commit to 'zero waste' and end damaging landfill altogether.
>
> Yours sincerely
>
>
> Paul Goodman

just a point in general about all the "responses" that people are getting from local MP's.......not once have i seen an MP mention what they intend to do about it, its action we need from these people not words, they are in fact supposed to be "our voice" in parliament, they make me sick, overpaid ******!
rant over

Hear hear

Part of the problem is that it won't even be the MP who's replying (or even ever reading your letter), but one of their case workers or researchers, often recent graduates working for nothing more than travel expenses, whilst trying to live in London. A better way to get stuff done is to find out when your local MPs next constituency surgery is and go in and see them face to face. At least that way you know they will have heard what you have to say.

godfrey wrote:A better way to get stuff done is to find out when your local MPs next constituency surgery is and go in and see them face to face. At least that way you know they will have heard what you have to say.

Unfortunately, based on two seperate personal experiences of doing this with two seperate MPs, this still guarantees you nothing, whatsoever.

It does mean, however, that you have managed to waste some of THEIR time as well as your own.......

Alan