Waste funding options given ‘to prevent more delays’
A BINARY yes/no proposition on waste strategy funding could have led to it being delayed further, the Environment & Infrastructure president has said.
Barry Brehaut’s committee published a joint waste strategy report with the States’ Trading Supervisory Board earlier this week.
That policy letter outlined nine different ways of funding the strategy’s £31.7m. implementation costs.
These options range from charging £2.50 per bag of rubbish plus an annual States fixed charge of £85 per household, to a purely ‘polluter pays’ approach that could initially cost between £3.90 and £4.80 per bag.
Deputy Brehaut said that although his committee’s preference was for the latter, a firm proposition would have carried with it the risk of no resolution being agreed.
‘Waste has a very long and difficult history and if we were to give the States a binary yes or no choice, there would have been a risk of the strategy being stalled further,’ he said.
The island ‘desperately’ needs this debate to be concluded so households have a firm idea of what the strategy will mean for them.
STSB president Charles Parkinson, who is out of the island, has previously said that he is more concerned about implementing the strategy successfully than how it is funded.
Under the new system, islanders will have to put pre-paid stickers on their black bag waste to have it collected.
There will be a new weekly collection of food waste, plus fortnightly collection of all other waste and recycling for the majority of homes.
The only exception will be some homes in St Peter Port, which will have a weekly collection for general black bag waste.
The new collections, which will start on 2 September, also include separate glass recycling.
