Recycled politics

The last three weeks in politics have been so exciting, even a Greengage couldn't fail to wake from its summer slumber. More (perhaps) later on election fever, the Tories' great green climbdown, and some inconvenient truths about climate sceptics.

But the mills of Bristol politics - rather like this blog - grind a little more slowly. It may seem like we've been talking about rubbish for years now, but the Lib Dems just don't want to stop. So enamoured are they by this topic, they want a special council meeting on the subject.

What's to discuss?

The waste management scheme introduced by the Lib Dems is still in place.

We have been told that the Citizens' Jury set up by Labour largely endorsed the status quo - as has been pointed out elsewhere, a rather expensive exercise in sham democracy at £45k. (Although the full report has its highlights. More on this in my next post.)

Of course it is fun to see Labour climb down from their ill-advised local election pledges about weekly collections in inner city areas like Easton - and we can only hope they will be soundly punished for this at the next round of elections. But it's hard to imagine that a special council meeting on waste will do anything other than give the Lib Dems gloating rights, and allow Gary Hopkins to mount his corn-starch hobby horse.

Hopkins is puzzlingly infuriated that his wrong headed demands to introduce corn-starch liners for kitchen waste bins have not been acted upon. Lib Dem freesheet The Bristol Reporter quotes him as saying 'Professional advice about how they [liners] would improve composting rates and please residents has been rejected'. But both the environmental benefits of these bags and their popularity are illusory. Hopkins has yet to rebut the Green case against these bags. And his e-petition in favour of the liners has collected a grand total of 17 signatories since August. Hardly a ringing popular endorsement.

There are real issues about waste and recycling in Bristol, but whether the Lib Dems will raise them is another matter.