{"id":6286,"date":"2015-03-25T07:29:49","date_gmt":"2015-03-25T07:29:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=6286"},"modified":"2015-03-25T16:55:00","modified_gmt":"2015-03-25T16:55:00","slug":"lessons-in-waste-management-from-wiltshire-council","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2015\/03\/25\/lessons-in-waste-management-from-wiltshire-council\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons in waste management from Wiltshire Council"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Wiltshire Council is a unitary authority that covers the whole of Wiltshire where I live; this now excludes Swindon thereby relieving all of us of a dreadful responsibility. \u00a0WC is run by the Conservatives who are more or less successfully keeping the council tax down by being <em>lean<\/em> or <em>mean<\/em>, according to your point of view.<\/p>\n<p>Up to now, WC has provided everyone with\u00a0a fortnightly garden waste collection service funded by\u00a0the council tax. \u00a0Despite my numerous compost heaps, I am a very regular user, not only of this service, but also of the local\u00a0recycling centres. \u00a0However, WC's finances are now under pressure. \u00a0A public consultation about garden waste collections showed that people overwhelmingly preferred a slightly reduced service to an additional charge. \u00a0Despite this, WC has decided it has to charge \u00a340\/ year for the service \u2013 for those that\u00a0continue to want it.<\/p>\n<p>This is a happy outcome for WC executives\u00a0as the council tax will not be going up, and a promise will be kept. \u00a0However, a\u00a0key question is: what will those with limited green waste do? \u00a0Pay the \u00a340, get in the car and drive to a recycling centre, or find other ways to get rid of their waste. \u00a0An increase in roadside\u00a0tipping is predicted by some of those opposing the change, as is\u00a0a reduction in overall recycling rates (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gazetteandherald.co.uk\/news\/11870716.Wiltshire_Council_to_shut_household_recycling_centres_two_days_a_week\/\">reported<\/a> to be, currently, a miserable\u00a052%). \u00a0This will be a less-happy outcome, but is seen by WC to be better than being seen to raise the tax. \u00a0It estimates that 20% of residents will pay the charge, and that, at these levels, the cost saving will be \u00a3800,000. \u00a0We shall see.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wiltshire Council is a unitary authority that covers the whole of Wiltshire where I live; this now excludes Swindon thereby relieving all of us of a dreadful responsibility. \u00a0WC is run by the Conservatives who are more or less successfully...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment","category-news-and-updates"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}