Kent Green Party has condemned the Government’s allocation of £250 million to re-starting weekly bin collections.

They say it appears that all Kent councils are going back to weekly bin collections, at least for food waste, over the next year.

Dr Hazel Dawe, Campaigns Officer of Kent Green Party, said: "Kent Green Party condemns the Government’s attack on recycling by encouraging councils to re-introduce weekly bin collections.

"Fortnightly collections have been shown to increase recycling. Weekly collections are an anti-recycling measure and should be stopped.

"Most food waste can be composted, either by the household or by their Council. It should not be sent to landfill or incineration," which Dr Dawe described as "problematic" ways of dealing with waste.

Dr Dawe claimed: "It would cost any district council in Kent about £1 million to re-introduce full weekly collections.

"Recently, South Oxfordshire’s council has reached 71% recycling using fortnightly collections the best result in the country. Kent’s landfill sites are filling up because we are still putting 44 million tonnes into landfill in the UK each year, and more recycling will avoid the cost of new landfill sites," she said.

"Importing more raw materials is bad for our balance of payments, our economy and employment: if we recycled more and phased out landfill, as Germany is doing, we could be employing more people in the Waste Management sector.

"Kent Green Party also wants to see councils encourage more re-use, not just recycling and they also need to increase the variety of goods sorted and collected at the kerbside."

Hawkinge Gazette and Channel Coast News 2012©