Your Cotswold Life
Above: Welcome to the May issue
Welcome to the May issue of Cotswold Life.
BY THE time you read this, we will be a couple of weeks into Cotswold District Council's new refuse recycling scheme.
Not only will you now have a green bin and a black recycling box, but also a grey non-recyclable bin, a little green bucket – redolent of the wartime pig swill bins - that you're expected to use for food waste, and a baffling combination of beige or blue reusable sacks for other recyclable rubbish.
One can only imagine what the groomed-gravel driveways of our Englishman's castles will look like on collection day – the invasion of the Daleks springs to mind.
You may ask why on earth we have to put up with this onerous regime. After all, our previously civilised system of weekly non-recyclable rubbish collections and fortnightly pick-ups of garden waste, glass and cardboard worked splendidly. You will then be frowned upon and told that if you don't submit to ordeal by ordure, the government will fine the district council millions of pounds – on the orders of Brussels - and all your children's schools will have to be closed down.
I probably shouldn't react in this recalcitrant manner, but one does get weary of being bossed about like a naughty child when one is paying handsomely for the so-called privilege. It should be noted that Cotswold people are already religious recyclers. Anyone doubting this need only pop down the recycling centre at Horsley on a Sunday morning where an impressive congregation worships at the bottle bank.
And then there's the simple iniquity of elements of the scheme. My garden waste was previously collected once a fortnight free of charge – apart from the significant element of council tax that funded the service. I now have to pay the council an extra £30 a year to have it collected weekly, or presumably not at all.
Has anyone realised how this charge discriminates against those of us with modest gardens? If one has an estate, one has gardeners to dispose of the grass cuttings and the rose prunings. If one has an acre or so, one has space for a pestilent bonfire to get rid of the rubbish. But if one has a mere postage stamp, with no space for a semi-industrial composting system, there is no choice but to pay this new collection tax. That doesn't seem fair.
Political pressure group The Taxpayers' Alliance recently surveyed every local authority asking them about the salary levels of their employees, in particular those earning more than £100,000 a year. Cotswold District Council was one of the few authorities which declined to respond. I shall be pondering that question as I scrape the crumbs of my Waitrose red onion and goat's cheese filo tart into my scraps bucket this evening.
Mike Lowe, Editor
mike.lowe@archant.co.uk