Why York's Lord Mayor is waging war on plastic

YORK'S Lord Mayor Keith Orrell is the first to admit that he's no David Attenborough.

The veteran City of York councillor has been campaigning and raising awareness about the damage we're doing to our environment for years - including the threat posed by the ocean of plastic that makes its way into our seas. Sometimes it has appeared as if what he was saying was falling on deaf ears.

"And then David Attenborough produces a programme and the world listens!" he says, in mock exasperation.

In truth he's delighted, of course, that a cause so close to his heart has such a champion. Now that the great naturalist has put the issue of plastic so firmly on the agenda, it is a real opportunity to push for more action, he believes.

And he's determined to use his year as Lord Mayor to try to do just that.

Cllr Orrell raised the issue at the very first opportunity - at the Mayor Making ceremony at which he became Lord Mayor at the end of May. He called then for more awareness of the importance of sustainability, and for a reduction in use of single-use plastics - urging businesses and organisations to lead by example.

He has written to this newspaper on the subject; has corresponded with the Little Apple bookshop in Petergate, which chose the book No. More. Plastic as its book of the week; and raises the issue of plastic use whenever he can on school visits and at other Lord Mayoral functions. He's also hoping to arrange a series of business breakfasts to which he will invite environmentally-friendly firms to talk to other local businesses about the issue.

Sir David has opened the door, he says. It is up to everybody who believes we need a more sustainable, environmentally friendly world to start pushing.

He isn't against plastic per se, he stresses. It has its uses. "We couldn't have things like computers or TV without it." It is our careless, throwaway reliance on single-use plastics that really upsets him.

The devastating impact of our throwaway culture became all too obvious in the final episode of Attenborough's series Blue Planet 2. The episode showed a sperm whale trying to eat a discarded plastic bucket and an albatross that had choked to death on a plastic bag, amongst other horrors.

It sparked a worldwide epidemic of handwringing, and pushed the question of our use of plastics high up on the political agenda.

But our wasteful over-reliance on plastic is symptomatic of a more general lack of care about our environment, Cllr Orrell says: and it is that lack of care that worries him. "I have a concern for the future," he says. "For the future of the planet, for future generations. I think it is something that we should all be concerned about."

Many ordinary people are willing to try to do their bit with things like recycling, he concedes. But as a society, as a species, we need to do much more. And in particular, we need to get businesses and industry on board if we're to end the relentless exploitation of our world and its resources.

"We need more responsible business," he says. "A lot of them are saying the right things, some of them are doing the right things. But we're still not doing it at a high enough level."

He may not be able to match the Attenborough effect. But if he has his way, by the end of his term in office a few more York businesses will be doing that little bit more...

York's Lord Mayor has always been interested in the environment. Born in Wigan, the 74-year-old was brought up in Leyland near Preston - a town famous for its motor industry. Both his parents were teachers, so when he went off to college in Sunderland, it was naturally to train as a teacher.

He spent 30 years as a teacher in the north east, much of that time working with children with special educational needs. "I just had an interest in working with children with a variety of different educational needs," he says. "It seemed more rewarding, and more challenging."

For several years, he was the head of an autistic unit attached to a school in Middlesbrough.

Then, more than 20 years ago, fed up with the increasing pressure on schools to meet targets, he retired, aged just 50, to 'spend more time in politics'.

He already had experience as a local councillor. An early member of the SDP - the centrist Social Democratic Party formed in 1981 by four disaffected Labour moderates, Roy Jenkins, David Owen, Bill Rodgers and Shirley Williams - he became a member of the Liberal Democrats when the SDP and the Liberals merged to form the new party in 1988.

He preferred moderate, centrist politics - and the Lib Dems were a good fit for him because they 'always had a strong environmental portfolio', he says.

He was elected as a Lib Dem councillor on South Tyneside. "There were 57 Labour councillors, two Conservatives and me." Then, in 1995, he decided he couldn't spend all the time he wanted to on politics while working full time.

He retired from teaching, and he and his second wife Judith (the pair have three grown-up children from previous marriages between them) moved to Malton when he was was chosen as the Lib Dems' parliamentary candidate for Ryedale.

He stood in the elections in 1997 and 2001, failing to win either time. "But the conservative majority of 18,000 in 1992 was down to 4,000 by 2001," he says proudly.

Having made friends in Huntington while he was the Ryedale parliamentary candidate, he and Judith moved to York in 2002, and he became a Lib Dem city councillor not long after: a position he has held ever since.

He served a year as Sheriff in 2003/4 - a useful kind of apprenticeship for being Lord Mayor. And now he is York's first citizen for the year.

The hardest thing about it is not being able to talk about politics, he says.

But at least he can talk about plastic...

The Lord Mayors charities

Each year, the sitting Lord Mayor chooses local charities for which to raise money.

Keith Orrell's choice of charities to support is not really surprising, given his many years as a special educational needs teacher. Two are youth charities that work with disadvantaged or challenged children and young people, and the third is a charity supporting people with visual impairments.

His charities are:

The Island

Registered in 2007, The Island offers support to 8 – 13 year-olds in York who may be struggling to cope at home, at school, or in the wider community, or who are going through difficult changes in their lives.

The charity links these young people with volunteer mentors who they meet on a weekly basis. The idea is to enable them to form lasting relationships, while also providing them with the attention and ‘islands of space and time’ they need to increase their confidence and self-esteem.

“This is effectively what my career was all about,” the Lord Mayor says.

York Music Hub

York Music Hub aims to give children and young people the chance to learn and play music. “It helps children to be involved in music, which is a wonderful thing,” the Lord Mayor said. “If they cannot get instruments – well, then it will help them do so.”

York Blind and Partially Sighted Society

The charity’s aim is to support local people with visual impairments to live independently.

As a society, we are getting a little better at enabling people in wheelchairs to live fuller, more independent lives, the Lord Mayor says. But by comparison people with visual impairments still get overlooked.

That’s true even in his own home for the year, the Lord Mayor’s flat in the Mansion House.

There is a lift up to the flat. The controls for the lift are placed at a nice height for anyone sitting in a wheelchair, but aren’t that easy to read. “So if there was a Lord Mayor in a wheelchair they would be able to manage. But somebody who was blind or partially sighted would have problems.”