Plastic’s Fantastic In Ealing But Less So In Hounslow

Residents voice concerns over their local recycling services

Ealing council’s new recycling services mean that residents can now put out all of their waste – including plastics - in one go and on one day. Across the road in Hounslow things are a rather different.

“I have real concerns now about the recycling services in Chiswick.” says a Riverview Road resident. “At the end of October Sainsbury’s updated their recycling centre. They now maintain it rather than Hounslow Council. You can no longer recycle plastic packaging at these centres, only plastic bottles and bags. This means that Chiswick residents have to travel to Tesco to recycle plastic packaging and cartons (nearest for me is in Isleworth).”

“Hounslow council are reassessing their services, but surely this needs to be made a priority. It's time something was done about this. It is also morally wrong and irresponsible that a business like Sainsbury’s is creating the majority of plastic packaging, but providing no service to recycle it.”

According to LBH’s website, plastic cannot currently be collected from the kerbside for recycling because plastic is a light but bulky part of household waste and in order to collect it would mean modifying the entire fleet of collection vehicles to accommodate the plastic.

Under their current contract with ECT – which is up for renewal in 2008 - this would be very expensive. Hounslow Council will be looking for a competitive price for the inclusion of a kerbside collection of plastics from those who wish to tender for the new contract.

December 5, 2007