Croydon Council is running a series of workshops that take residents through the 'waste choices' before Croydon Council.

It looks very much like a marketing exercise, rather than a consultation! (see Croydon Guardian article here)

The workshops push the idea that incineration of some kind is the only way forward.

Even if you are in favour of incineration, it surely can not be right to go for incineration now, before recycling has got up to speed (Croydon has an appalling record on recycling. 74% goes to landfill).

The key reasons to back incineration are:

• Easy to set up with a site identified
• Easy to monitor contract with private company (tonnes of waste delivered x tonnage fee)
• Cheaper than recycling
• No need to set up complicated collection arrangements
• No need to reduce packaging or waste streams
• No need to find ways of recycling plastics

Easy solutions are not the best environmental solution, as demonstrated by Greenpeace and other green lobbying organisations.

Labour says let us do the job properly. Recycle properly first, then take any decision on incineration at a later date. By taking the decision now, Croydon Council will be tying itself in to a long term contract that will be impossible to get out of.

Let us make Croydon truly green together and avoid incineration