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On top of a load of rubbish? MailMarks
HOWare you doing recycling and
disposing of your household and gardenwaste? Most of us inMaidstone andMalling
area are nowexperienced, generally knowledgeable, efficient and keen to help our area hold a good position in the national table. That iswhy there are local concerns
about national reports that some recyclables are being dumpedwith waste and directed to incinerators or landfill sites. Is this happening to any of our localmeticulously-separatedwaste aswell? I have been enlightened by specialists inMaidstone Borough Council’s
team.Maidstone’s recent record on recycling is good. The percentage of local householdwaste sent for re-use or composting hit 51.1% in 2017/18, placing us 73rd among 345 local authorities.Worstwas Newham with 14.1%, and top East Riding of Yorkshirewith 64.5%. I suspect our own house is typical of
somany aroundMaidstone. I counted the total rubbish-related points andwas amazed it totals 22. Five bins are provided by the council for collections – one for recyclables, one for general rubbish, twowe need for gardenwaste and one for food. The others include eight small bins
around the house and sheds for convenient collection ofwaste, plus one for kitchenwaste, an internal foodwaste collection and another for recyclables. In the garden there are three bins for
Where there’smuck ...
IUNDERSTANDthat certain items of householdwaste are going to be charged for at the council refuse tip. When Iwas very young, rag and bone
men came round the streets, a laAlbert andHarold Steptoe, shouting out in a peculiar language impossible to translate, but everyone knewitwas them. They wanted rags, bones, rabbit skins, pots, pans,metal and almost any old item. The paymentwas nearly always a goldfish. When Iwas about 15, Iwent into one of
these places inwhat appeared to be the poorest street inMaidstone but, in fact, was the richest. Iwas cha�ing to the owner dressed in a leather apron and a pork pie hat, he said tome: “Son, to look at me youwouldn't think I own five houses and two cars, one of thema Rover!” This turned out to be true, and to think I
had felt sorry for him. The TV showThe Sopranos informed us
that itwas not verywise tomove in on the garbage business. But in the north they say that “where there’smuck there’s brass”. It poses the question,why is it that those
I knowin the scrap business have always beenmillionaires and there is a problem
38 Maidstone August 2019
DENNISFOWLE President
dennisfowle28@gmail.com
composting over a three-year cycle – and the same for leafmold. These are valuable for a productive garden and shrubs. So if residents are dedicated to
recyclingwe expect the national system to be the same. Obviously in some areas it falls seriously short. Maidstonewaste goes to Crayford
Material Recycling Centre,managed by Viridor under contract to KCC. Maidstone Borough Council officers regularly visit this site to check the quality of loads delivered fromour borough. Currently, Crayford has an 8%
rejection rate –materials notmeeting its recycling acceptance criteria. Typically, these include nappies,wood, garden waste, plastic toys and plastic film. If contamination is excessive the load can be rejected and thesematerials are disposed of at energywaste plants, never to landfill. To reduce contaminants,Maidstone
Borough Council a�ached information stickers to all recycling bins. Detailed advice is also available on the council’s website. If youwant to do it right, it is worth checking these out.
for councils? There has always been “recycling” of one sort or another. Bo�les nearly always had a deposit on
them, and just off Lower Stone Street you could see bo�les being cleaned in a big machine. InAmerica, they have always had and still have brown paper bags. The truth is that themakers of
containers, tin cartons etc. have always mademore than the produce in them, and thosewho remove garbage do not do it for peanuts. If themostwealthy control packaging and its disposal, howcan it be regulated? But I do knowmy packaging simply keeps ge�ing bigger everyweek. AlanWallace, via email
Complaints don’t stack up
KGBanks (Comments, July 2019) suggests MrsMay suffered fromthemisogynist views of her ex-public school colleagues – so howon earth did the last Conservative leadership election end upwith two female candidates and nomale ones? Neither the Labour or LibDemparties
have ever had a female leader nor a female primeminister, sowhich parties are actually full ofmisogynists? In the same edition,AJB Collins asks
School Lanewins FOLLOWINGmy piece lastmonth
about deteriorating quality of life in Maidstone, I have had a nomination from a reader for theworst road surface. It is for School Lane on its approaches
toWillington Street,with its desperately bad surface, poormarkings and speed humps so ridiculously high they seriously shake up car and passengers travellingwellwithin the speed limit (these should bemade illegal). He suggests all KCCHighways
employees and elected councillors should bemade to drive along School Lane every day, on theway to and home fromwork ormeetings. It getsmy vote too – but hasmany awful competitors.
No-see seats IALWAYS support Pegasus
Gymnastics Club, increasingly successful in its endeavourswith such awide range of our local young people. I looked forward to its festival at
Maidstone Leisure Centre – and almost sawnothing.Our seatswere in rowP and itwas impossible to see the floor- level arena over the heads of rows in front. Small ones had no chance. Therewas nowarning of restricted – or
nil – viewing on themany tickets sold in the gallery. Itmust be resolved, perhaps by using a normal elevated stage and not advancing it fromthe backwall to install seating.
why, “nowmore facts are known” should we not have a confirmatory second referendum? What facts are these andwhatwould the
questions be? Surelywe’d need to leave beforewe could knowwhat the facts would be?Anything else is just guesswork or scaremongering. In 1975,we had a confirmatory
referendum, two years afterwe had first joined the CommonMarket “whenmore factswere known”.We then had towait for 41 years beforewe had the chance to vote again and this time themajority voted to leave the EU. Most peoplewho call for another
referendumdo so because they didn't like the result of the last
one.Howon earth can the LibDems call themselves democrats? As sure as night follows day if another referendumproduced a remain resultwe wouldn’t be consulted for another 41 years! MikeWardle,Walderslade
Future of PowerHub
I READwithmuch interest recently of the transformation of a formerNestle coffee factory atHayes inMiddlesex.
Comment
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