Waste and Recycling

Clean city – healthy planet

Demand for resources is greater than ever.  We must make recycling and reusing resources as easy as possible.  We should reward reuse and recycling where necessary.  Bristol should be a model for a different way of working in which the maximum possible quantity of redundant materials is re-used or recycled.

There is much that needs to be done at a national area in reducing the production of waste e.g. taxing goods that cause waste, like plastic bags, and subsidising the design and production of goods that can be wholly recycled when they have to be replaced or discarded.

Bristol needs an campaign that reduces our production of waste products and appreciates that our waste contains resources too valuable to be buried in the ground or burned.  We would encourage people to come up with their own locally based plans for reducing waste.  These might include ways of dealing with the particular problem of recycling plastic and the provision of community compost-making facilities.  Where such local initiatives produce a significant saving in Council services they might justify a council tax rebate.

The Green Party opposes incineration as a way of dealing with waste even when used to make electricity.  Economies of scale lead to large units for maximum profit and these, besides posing health risks through their emissions, generate a need to produce waste that counters all efforts to reduce it