Thousands of tonnes of rubbish collected for recycling ends up being incinerated instead, a campaigner said in a petition to Brighton and Hove City Council.
Robert Jones-Mantle, who ran the Magpie Green Box service, presented the petition to a meeting of the full council at hove Town Hall yesterday (Thursday 30 January).
Mr Jones-Mantle, co-founder of the community recycling company, urged the council to take a “no politics and no profiteering” approach to waste collections.
His petition, on the Change.org website, was headed Clean Air Clean Streets and said that 700 out of 3,000 tonnes of recycling ended up being incinerated in the first quarter of 2023.
In the final quarter, the proportion of waste being burnt had risen to a third, the petition said.
In 30 years of the Green Box service, longer than the council’s own recycling set up, Magpie had reached a peak of 80 per cent of its collections being recycled.
Magpie also picked up a wider variety of plastics and other recyclables, rejected by the council, but the Green Box service ended last month.
Mr Jones-Mantle told councillors: “The Brighton and Hove wasteful recycling issues aren’t going to be successfully tackled without a unified local approach.
“No politics and no profiteering. For the city and owned by the city. For households and for local businesses.
“There are alternative city-made solutions being intentionally or deliberately overlooked and these are due an explanation of why they’ve been shunned and sabotaged.
“Some residents are making their own solutions who are not supported for being the community champions they are.”
Labour cabinet member Tim Rowkins said that he had been a Green Box subscriber and was disappointed when it closed.
The cabinet member for net zero and environmental services said that recycling services should be available free of charge – and the council was committed to operating an in-house service.
But he promised to meet Mr Jones-Mantle to discuss opportunities for a community project for elements of recycling.
Councillor Rowkins announced changes to the council’s recycling service, adding plastic pots, trays and tubs, aluminium foil and trays and food and drink cartons to what could be left for kerbside collection.
He said that the Greens had twice run the council and each time had “perpetuated a myth” that the recycling contract signed by Labour in 2003 could not be changed.
He also announced a £1.2 million a year food waste collection service.
Councillor Rowkins said: “These major changes will be a shot in the arm for our long-suffering recycling rates and will significantly reduce the amount of waste going into the city’s refuse bins.
“Let the record show that while the Green Party’s position on expanding recycling is that it can’t be done, the Labour position is, well, we’ve done that. What’s next on the list?”
Green councillor Pete West, who was shocked by the end of the “much-loved” Magpie Green Box scheme, asked if the council would set up a subscription scheme for “super-recyclers”.
Councillor Rowkins said that the council was not planning to start a paid-for service, adding that comprehensive recycling should be available to all residents.
