I AM glad Andy Moore (Review, August 26) enjoys recycling and is managing to reduce his carbon-footprint and contributing to saving the Earth.

However, Andy should go through all the issues raised in my letter which were in response to issues raised by Dizzy of Sedbury and ‘Fed up’ in St Briavels in the previous edition.

The main issues were: cost and environmental effectiveness of the collection methods, complexities and mismatch of the recycling, and final disposal processes involved.

Collection, cleaning and separation of the different materials and bins, transport, and their final sale or processing all involve additional water and energy inputs which also need to be considered.

Waste collection and its administration consumes over a quarter of the council’s budget.

Notwithstanding the recycling systems implemented by many UK councils, huge quantities of materials, recycled laboriously and at high cost, end up in landfill because of poor separation.

Recycling was at one time implemented simply to meet government targets which no longer exist and old habits die hard.

Countries such as Germany and Denmark, where recycling and materials recovery reach much higher levels than in Britain, use intelligent and cost-effective collection and mechanised sorting systems coupled with efficient waste-to-energy plants providing high cost efficiencies and much lower carbon footprint overall.

The system implemented in Gloucestershire fares poorly even in comparison with many other UK councils which implement simplified co-mingled collections coup-

led with smart materials recovery facilities and waste-to-energy plants.

For unknown reasons, collection is the responsibility of the district and city councils whereas disposal and processing is that of the county.

Over the years there has been a disjoint between collection and treatment/ disposal with the cart set before the horse.

Protests against waste-to-energy plants have not helped the situation.  

Shouting out ‘recycling’ loudly does not necessarily save the Earth.

– Venk Shenoi, Blaisdon.