Recycling - Some possibilities!

Just to update you on my Blog of the 22nd August, you'll be pleased to hear that we have been advised by Mr. Hague of the Parish of St. Helier that as of today we will be able to take all of our cardboard waste to the Central Market waste collection area, about 50 metres down the road from us, so it does show that if you keep plugging away change can happen.

I am however also advised that the £10,000 plus cardboard compressing machine in this area is currently out of action, and has been for around 6 months, this means that all cardboard waste is now being taken away from this area by truck to another recycling area where it can be compressed. You can't have too much of a good thing now can you.

This operation is run I believe by the Transport and Technical department, a States department and it got me wondering which privately run organisation could afford to have their core machine out of action for such a long period of time before they went bust. It's no wonder Islanders get so frustrated with our Government when even the simplist of things take so long to resolve.

The final twist in the tale of this sorry story goes as follows and for me sums up all that is wrong with our current States structure. The Small Business Group (part of the Jersey Chamber of Commerce), had a meeting with John Rive (the recycling officer for Transport and Technical services) at which was discussed issues to do with cost effective recycling. Mr. Rive promised to research the possibilities of a wider use of the Central Market facility.

When I spoke with Mr. Hague about this, sadly he knew nothing about Mr. Rive's project despite both the Parish of St. Helier and Transport and Technical wanting to achieve the same end, that is recycle more rubbish. Now how insane is that?

If ever evidence for a complete overhaul of States departments was justified look no further.