ST PETER’S is aiming to become the first parish to introduce its own kerbside collection of recyclables. A States-run trial in part of that parish and St Peter Port, that has operated since the summer and spring of 2006 respectively, is scheduled to run until June.
‘Having encouraged half of the parish to put their recyclables out for collection, we feel it should be kept going rather than let it die just because the States can’t be bothered to carry it on,’ said St Peter’s senior constable Hugh Lenfestey.
‘You have to go to the people and encourage them to recycle and you can’t rely solely on the bring-bank initiative.’
Collection of the parish’s putrescent waste currently takes place weekly late on a Tuesday/early on Wednesdays.
The constables are looking for someone to collect recyclables fortnightly but on the same day to enable parishioners to put out everything at the same time.
‘We are not producing enough recyclables at present to justify the added expenditure involved with a weekly collection,’ said Mr Lenfestey.
The constables have asked contractors to tender for the recyclables collection from July to December next year. Funding will come via the refuse rate.
Public Services minister Bill Bell said no decision had been made on the future of the trials.
‘We have said we will continue until June and it doesn’t mean that they will stop,’ he said.
‘It may be that we will replace them with something else. They were experiments and we have learnt a lot. We want to get as many parishes as we can involved with kerbside recycling and we are trying to do it in the most economical way.
‘By June we’ll have a new department with new members and new ideas and it will be up to them to make decisions for the future.’
St Sampson’s senior constable Peter Gillson said his parish had looked at introducing its own scheme, but had ruled it out for the time being at least.
St Sampson’s, along with St Peter Port, are the only parishes to have two refuse collections per week.
St Sampson’s asked its contractor if collections could alternate between putrescent waste and recyclables, but this would have come at a price.
‘If we could have done it for the same price, we would have, but it would have meant a significant increase in cost and we felt that would have been inappropriate at that time,’ said Mr Gillson.
n Tender details of the St Peter’s contract are available by calling 264638. Tenders must be submitted by 5pm on Monday 29 October.
Article posted on 19th October, 2007 - 12.00am
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