Zero waste is the cheaper alternative (From York Press)

Zero waste is the cheaper alternative

3:03pm Thursday 1st November 2012 in Letters By Reader's letter

COUN DAVID LEVENE may be partially excused for merely repeating the big business line that the £1.4 billion incineration project will be a good thing (The Press, October 31).

He wasn’t elected when his Labour colleagues in York were whipped into supporting this environmental and financial fiasco, despite a New Labour commitment to make the UK a zero-waste nation when it was in power nationally. The Coalition Government has also since agreed to “work towards a zero-waste economy”.

Therefore, it disturbs me greatly when elected councillors should refuse even to consider the most environmentally friendly alternative of Zero Waste, especially when it would also be the cheaper alternative, creating more jobs in local communities across the county. However, councillors in York and North Yorkshire consistently refused to explore this option which could have slashed another £300,000,000 from the £1.4b price-tag on the incinerator project. While Labour makes cuts to mental health services, outsources children’s homes and libraries, throws more staff out of work, and considers charging residents for green-bin collections, I would like it to consider what it might have done to protect jobs and services with York’s share of that kind of saving.

Dave Taylor, Green Party councillor for Fishergate, New Walk Terrace, York.