Talking rubbish

THERE'S nothing like wading knee-deep through rubbish to bring home what a throw-away society we live in. In the midst of farmland just to the west of York, screened from the B1224 and by rows of trees, is a huge open tip.

The Harewood Whin landfill site is a great gash in the ground that is used to dump all the unwanted detritus of our day-to-day lives.

Plastic bottles and bags, rotting clothes, old newspapers and telephone books, rusting tin cans, rolls of plastic-coated wire netting, bottles and computer discs; they're all dumped here, all covered in the kind of slimy, stinking grime that gathers in the bottom of your dustbin at home and all just waiting to be buried.

It may be an archaeologist of the future's dream: but are we really happy at the thought of our green and pleasant land being turned into a giant dustbin?

To be fair, the site is well managed by Yorwaste, the private company which runs it. Only 86 of its 125 acres will ever be used for actually burying rubbish - and of that, only a small per cent is in use at any one time. The rest is covered with topsoil - and once filled the whole site will be properly capped and returned to use as farmland.

At the end of each day the rubbish deposits are covered in a layer of earth, and there are stringent measures to stop polluted water leaking into the ground. The smell isn't as bad as you might expect. But still, this is not the kind of place anybody in their right mind wants on their back door.

How much of this stuff could be recycled? I ask my guide - Yorwaste's regional manager John Miller - as we wade through mountains of rubbish. Theoretically, about 92 per cent, he admits. But then comes the rub. "That is if money was no object."

Ah yes, money. Odd how it always comes down to that. We're the dirty men of Europe, falling way behind many of our Continental neighbours in recycling rubbish - and it's largely because we can't or won't change our lazy habits or pay what it takes to clean up after ourselves properly.

About 220,000 tons of rubbish are buried at Harewood Whin every year - over half of it from domestic households like yours and mine. And the dirty truth is that much of the trash we throw out every week could be re-used or recycled.

Every household in York produces on average about one tonne of rubbish a year. At the moment a little less than six per cent of that is recycled, and almost four per cent - mostly garden clippings and mown grass - is composted.

That puts York's record on recycling domestic waste very much in line with the national average: but it's still fairly pitiful. And just because nobody else in this country can be bothered cleaning up the mess they've made doesn't mean we shouldn't bother either.

If we don't act, things will only get worse. The amount of rubbish our throw-away society is producing is steadily increasing.

"It is expected to double by 2025," says Paul Thackray, the city council's head of client and city centre services. "We cannot just keep on burying large amounts of rubbish in the ground."

Usually, the automatic response of anyone confronted with an uncomfortable truth and unwilling to shoulder any responsibility themselves is to blame the council. But that wouldn't be fair. Yes, it could and should do more - extra recycling points, for a start, and an expansion of kerbside recycling to make it easier for householders to recycle their rubbish. But unless we're willing to make the effort as well, that will count for very little.

Which is what the council's latest consultation document, Let's Talk Rubbish, is all about. The Government has set tough new national targets for local authorities. By 2005, the aim is for at least 25 per cent of household waste across the country to be recycled, rising to 30 per cent by 2010 and 33 per cent by 2015. The targets for the City of York itself are slightly less rigorous - 12 per cent by 2003/4 and 18 per cent by 2005/6 - but will still take some meeting.

How to achieve this is what is now preoccupying the minds of York's brightest and best waste disposal managers. A pilot scheme of kerbside recycling which covers 1,000 homes in Holgate and Huntington is to be extended to up to 20,000 homes soon. There are a number of other developments in the pipeline, too - but ultimately how much more the council is prepared to spend on recycling may be largely up to us.

The council's consultation document - which must be returned by July 23 - asks questions such as would we be willing to separate recyclable from non-recyclable items in our own rubbish, and would we rather pay an extra £1-00 a week in council tax for a separate collection of recyclable materials every week, or simply accept alternating collections, one week for recyclable materials, one week for non-recyclable?

But there is also the implicit threat that if we don't improve our act on recycling, the council may turn to incineration - and possibly even if we do. An independent report for nine North Yorkshire authorities revealed local councils can't expect to meet their targets simply by relying on us to recycle more.

You might have thought just burying rubbish in a giant dump just outside York was bad enough. If the thought of finding somewhere to burn it all strikes you as appalling - however clean the technology in principle, and however much power could be generated from treating rubbish as fuel - then it's up to you to prove the council wrong.

See you down the bottle bank.

- There are 56 recycling sites across York. Some have just one type of bank, others collect a range of materials including paper, glass, cans, textiles, books, cardboard and plastic. For more details call the council's recycling helpline on 01904 551579.

Updated: 10:33 Wednesday, July 11, 2001