A rubbish Christmas (From The Argus)

A rubbish Christmas

6:00am Saturday 2nd January 2010

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Whether you are sad Christmas and New Year is over for another year or overjoyed at getting back to normality, the festive season brings one point very clearly into focus: we produce a huge amount of rubbish. According to charity Waste Watch, the festive season lands the UK with an extra three million tonnes of waste to deal with.

Trying to imagine what that looks like? Cast your mind back to last year’s bin men strike action. Just two days in and the city streets were beginning to pile high with black bags, and the foul stench of rotting detritus drifted on the normally fresh sea breeze.

Of course, campaigners don’t miss a second in reminding us that if we only recycle more and better, this year’s festive rubbish heap won’t topple into the new year.

But while this is a great opportunity to promote the benefits of recycling, it doesn’t negate the vast quantities of stuff we chuck out.

According to Veolia Environmental Services, East Sussex produces around 400,000 tonnes of waste every year – enough to fill a swimming pool every 90 minutes. About 28% of that is recycled, the rest is sent to landfill or incinerated.

Landfill, as we know, is not very clever. At some point in 2010 (which started yesterday, for those still bleary after NYE), the landfill sites serving Brighton and Hove will close. And, apart from the toxic mess, damage to wildlife and ecosystems and so on, it’s really very expensive.

Each tonne of waste that gets dumped in a hole in the ground costs £86. For every tonne over EU limits, the council is fined £150.

Recycling, on the other hand, costs just £53 a tonne, according to the Brighton and Hove City Council draft waste strategy report.

Recycling is clearly a great idea and is generally seen as an inherent part of a greener lifestyle, but it is by no means a perfect solution.

To start with, not everyone does it. The report estimates that if every household did recycle as per the service available to them, the city’s recycling rates would increase by 37% overnight.

It is also a post-consumer solution, meaning that we have to create the problem in order to implement the fix. What about sidestepping the problem in the first place?

But of course, putting great ideas into action isn’t as easy as it sounds, so after three years of sitting in Argus Towers telling you all how to be greener, it’s about time I put my integrity to the test.

Horrified by my own rubbish stacking up during December, over the next four weeks I will attempt to minimise the rubbish that comes out of my flat, only using recycling and landfill as a last resort.

Follow my efforts in future Going Greens or online at theargus.co.uk/goinggreen.

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