Rory Stewart's legacy
Feb. 27th, 2026 05:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shewhomustLocal councils have a degree of flexibility in the recycling services they offer, and hitherto food waste collection has been optional. Some councils collect food waste, others don't, and Durham doesn't. But legislation is about to come into effect, which will require all councils to collect food waste: I've been thinking this was new legislation, but no, according to the Council officer whose talk we attended on Tuesday, this is something we owe to Rory Stewart, back when he was a junior minister (before he found his career in podcasting).
We have known for some time that this was imminent, and while in principal I'm all for it (less waste, more recycling!) I could not see how it was going to work in the City. We have streets with nowhere to leave bins, we have narrow back lanes, we have many resident students who struggle with the existing waste and recycling rules, we have (largely as a result of this) rats... The available information about the planned food waste collections didn't seem to be taking any of this into account. For example here's the briefing on the County Council website - though the emphasis is mine:
Because every household has individual bins that they put out on the appropriate day, and bring in again after, right? Only not in this part of the City they don't: I put in an FOI (Freedom of Information) request, and although theCouncil doesn't hold the exact figures, they reckoned that approximately 20% of the properties in the area I was asking about have refuse collected via an individual wheeled bin ("The Council does not hold exact numbers of households using communal bins.").
My local councillor organised a meeting at which a member of the Council's Waste and Recycling team would talk to residents about the new scheme; and I went along with just one question: how is this going to work in my area? This was already less than ideal: what I had hoped for was some sort of consultation with the Council, at which they would ask us what it would take to make it work in our area: but that was never going to happen...
No criticism of the young man who came to talk to us: his enthusiasm for recycling (or rather for the whole 'reduce - reuse - recycle' mantra) was a joy, and he demonstrated the lock mechanism of the bins with patience. But as soon as we got on to the Q&A, and someone - not me (I think they live in a retirement community) - asked how the scheme would work for them, the answer was that they were in an exemption class, and would not be included in the initial roll-out of the scheme. I asked my question, and got the same answer: this is still a work in progress. I hope I've got this right: I can't point to the place in the handout where these cases are covered, because the handout just talks about "every house in the county".
tl:dr; version is that it doesn't really matter. We can carry on composting, and although we don't actually use compost, it means that we produce very little food waste. I just wish the County Council wouldn't behave as if I didn't exist. (I blame this less on the political make-up of the council, more on being a unitary authority; but that's another rant.)
We have known for some time that this was imminent, and while in principal I'm all for it (less waste, more recycling!) I could not see how it was going to work in the City. We have streets with nowhere to leave bins, we have narrow back lanes, we have many resident students who struggle with the existing waste and recycling rules, we have (largely as a result of this) rats... The available information about the planned food waste collections didn't seem to be taking any of this into account. For example here's the briefing on the County Council website - though the emphasis is mine:
Each household will receive an external caddy to be kept outside and an internal caddy to go in the kitchen (you can use your own internal caddy if you prefer). You should empty the kitchen caddy into the outer one once it becomes full.
The external caddy will be collected weekly from where you place your existing refuse and recycling bin.
Because every household has individual bins that they put out on the appropriate day, and bring in again after, right? Only not in this part of the City they don't: I put in an FOI (Freedom of Information) request, and although theCouncil doesn't hold the exact figures, they reckoned that approximately 20% of the properties in the area I was asking about have refuse collected via an individual wheeled bin ("The Council does not hold exact numbers of households using communal bins.").
My local councillor organised a meeting at which a member of the Council's Waste and Recycling team would talk to residents about the new scheme; and I went along with just one question: how is this going to work in my area? This was already less than ideal: what I had hoped for was some sort of consultation with the Council, at which they would ask us what it would take to make it work in our area: but that was never going to happen...
No criticism of the young man who came to talk to us: his enthusiasm for recycling (or rather for the whole 'reduce - reuse - recycle' mantra) was a joy, and he demonstrated the lock mechanism of the bins with patience. But as soon as we got on to the Q&A, and someone - not me (I think they live in a retirement community) - asked how the scheme would work for them, the answer was that they were in an exemption class, and would not be included in the initial roll-out of the scheme. I asked my question, and got the same answer: this is still a work in progress. I hope I've got this right: I can't point to the place in the handout where these cases are covered, because the handout just talks about "every house in the county".
tl:dr; version is that it doesn't really matter. We can carry on composting, and although we don't actually use compost, it means that we produce very little food waste. I just wish the County Council wouldn't behave as if I didn't exist. (I blame this less on the political make-up of the council, more on being a unitary authority; but that's another rant.)
