GOVERNMENT has failed to make any progress on a waste strategy in 16 years, Deputy Brian de Jersey claims. The Vale member said it was unbelievable that the States was still going round in circles and over the same ground year after year.

Deputy de Jersey wanted to point that out in the House last week but because he had encroached into general debate during one of the amendments, he said he was excluded from talking on the main topic. If he had had the opportunity, Mr de Jersey said he would have highlighted nine recommendations to minimise the amount of waste to be disposed of in landfill sites, but those would only have been the very recommendations that the States itself passed in 1991.

They were:

* directing inert wastes to land reclamation sites;

* encouraging recycling;

* providing facilities for the deposit and collection of recyclable materials;

* providing facilities for separation at source of domestic waste;

* arranging for the collection of domestic waste in a separate condition;

* sorting unseparated waste;

* exporting all recyclable materials where practical, or reusing them within the island if not;

* Composting horticultural and domestic waste and marketing organic waste; and

* if the export of low grade paper waste became impractical by reason of cost, establishing facilities for the burning of a readily combustible part of the residual waste either by producing waste-derived fuel pellets in a small, purpose-built incinerator.

‘These are the same recommendations we’re making now.

‘I can only think they didn’t follow them through because they have had an incinerator in mind all the time.

‘In 1991, there were good, sensible proposals, but they have not materialised. If we had recycled our waste, an incinerator would not be practical.

‘Back then there was no Scrutiny Committee like we have today to ensure that what was agreed was carried out.’

Deputy de Jersey said if the recommendations had been followed 16 years ago, then there would be much more space left at Mont Cuet.

‘The responsibility has to fall with the department at the time, which I’m afraid seemed more interested in making money then ensuring there was separation at the tip.

‘When I was constable of the Vale in 1987, we ensured that things were sorted and separated.

‘We regularly turned up and monitored it to make sure it was happening, but that all stopped when the States took over the responsibility.’