The total madness that is the Island’s waste management system

My comments stem from what I foolishly thought was a clever idea as to how we might recycle our cardboard waste.

A recent employee of mine who came from Sweden was appalled at the fact that we simply threw in the bin all our cardboard waste, something that simply doesn’t happen in Sweden. So I made contact with John Rive the recycling guru on the Island who gave the thumbs up to the idea that we take our cardboard waste to the Central Market waste area for recycling.

So far so good; however on the last occasion that we walked our cardboard waste around to the Central Market we were told that this was the last time they would accept it. I guess it was all too simple.

Apparently a letter will be making its way round to us from a gentleman by the name of Paul Griffin of Property Holdings; they’ve got nothing to do with waste management, but look after the Central market. Apparently the problem was that the scheme was so successful that their people didn’t have enough hours left in the day to do their other market work. They also aren’t prepared to hire more staff to do work that I guess rightly so isn’t their problem, but of course ultimately it is their problem, because the Island’s waste management is a problem for the whole of our society.

So now who do we turn to? Well apparently that’s a very good question; Transport and Technical Services are in charge of the central handling of waste on this Island, that means they run Bellozane, but don’t tell anyone, they also collect waste from some bins around the Royal Square I’m reliably informed. The rest of the waste in the Parish of St. Helier is collected by the Parish. By the time you add up all the parishes together there are an unbelievable 13 different collecting agencies on an Island 9 miles x 5 miles!

What solutions are their on the table? Well for our cardboard waste the answer is none, because TTS and the Parish of St. Helier are fighting it out between them as to who will bear the cost, in the mean time we have no choice but to dump all our cardboard waste, which is criminal.

The Constable of St. Helier is trying to fight the fly tippers by removing Eurobins left, right and centre, which means that instead of full Eurobins we’re seeing epidemic proportions of black bin bags being left on our streets for the seagulls to rip apart, which in turn has to be cleared up by the Parish.

The whole waste management system is from where I’m sitting is in complete chaos, with each public sector empire either passing the buck or blaming the other for the current malaise.

The public are crying out for cost savings in the public sector yet here is as clear a restructuring opportunity as you can get, which no doubt has the potential to save the tax payer hundreds of thousands of pounds but I’m sure it can’t be as simple as that!