“Sorry Glenn. When I said 'Chris', I did in fact mean you. Apols. :-)”

“Green Party councillor Charlie Bolton says he hasn't a problem with shipping paper waste to Belgium given our lack of capacity here. SITA says recycling, even abroad, makes more environmental sense than burying it and Councillor Price says recycling saves more than 5 million quid in landfill fees for Bristolians.

I'd agree that saving money and helping the environment by shipping recyclables to Belgium mightn't be ideal but it's clearly better than paying to stick it in a big hole in the ground. It's worth noting that when moving waste to (necessarily) centralised reprocessing locations, Belgium is a whole lot closer than many parts of the UK, and a mere step across the street compared to China where much of the UK's paper waste was being sent pre-recession.

The Europeans were happily recycling for years before us Brits, who had to be dragged kicking and screaming into waste recycling. As a result, and as Chris Vowles points out, much of the supply-side infrastructure simply isn't in place at the moment. The recession might make it difficult to justify private investment at the moment but I'm sure we'll catch up. In the meantime, why shouldn't the council itself act as a catalyst? Examining reprocessing opportunities and looking for strategic partners to develop them may take the council beyond the strict remit of waste disposal, but could save even more in the future. And, as Chris says, could create jobs.”

“"The spokesman sited a report from the Government-funded..."

BEP you mean cited. If he sited it he just picked it up and put it somewhere else. Oh hang on, that's what happens to the recycling!

I agree with Glenn (no really), the recycling and green business idea needs to be more thoroughly thought through.
My big reservation on an immediate level is the smelly trucks rumbling around the streets and spending ages with the engines on tickover as the crew sit and doing nothing - I see it enough. Also, why do the streets develop a paper carpet whenever the trucks have been? Is it difficult to get it into them? Do they need to be bigger?”

“A GREENER ANSWER.
Bring back the Roman galleys, put people who, for example, steal poppy tins, as the "slaves" and let them row to Belgium with Bristol's waste. They can eat what they catch.”

“I only comes from bemmie so I might be a bit fick, but what happens to dat der rubbish wen it gets to Beligium?. Dont tell I its dumped in a landfill is it?.”

“Maybe it's 'greener' to have the waste shipped to Belgium - probably on a boat that would be going that way anyway - to a building already constructed to cater for such waste rather than constructing a new building here. Is the cimatic impact of construction lorries, production of construction materials, construction and operation of a recycling centre significantly less than that of shipping it off to Belgium?

Example: There are more parts to the energy efficient light bulbs which cannot be recycled. They need to last a lot longer than traditional bulbs if they are to be truly better for the environment.”

“Is the rubbish recycled in Bristol then sent overseas? Or is the rubbish shipped to Belgium then recycled?”

“To set up the most efficient and the most sustainable systems of resource use and waste management you need to ¿complete the circle¿ ie have a complete cycle of: cutting out resource use that is unnecessary; using and reusing products and resources efficiently; having localised and national reuse and recycling facilities; widespread production using reused products and recycled materials; making the consumption of products made from recycled materials commonplace and preferable¿

We dont have law and taxation favouring this. We don¿t have much infrastructure for doing all this. We have not had much investment in this. We¿ve not had the total systems thinking needed. Masses of new jobs could be created by setting up local reduction, reuse, recycling economies and a low waste, even zero waste, national economy/society. What better time than now for putting in the government money needed, as reports such as the Green New Deal have advocated? It will be a massive lost opportunity if we don¿t.”

“No, "Almost half our recyling is shipped to Belgium" shouldn' this instead read:

"Almost half *of* our recyling is shipped to Belgium"”

“This recycling lark is all a load of old rubbish”