Councillor Ken Howard

A few months ago I started working on my latest initiative. That WBC, in furtherance of its Climate Change Strategy and of environmental awareness generally, should deliver education on environmental matters related to global warming and climate change directly into schools.

A working group of 3 Councillors including myself was assembled from members of the Environmental O&S Committee (of which I am the Chairman) and I presented its findings and recommendations to the Committee last Monday.

The task group recommended that a programme should be run by an outside organisation with relevant expertise, aimed initially at the 8-11 year old age group to run for 3 years in order that all schools would have the opportunty to take part.

The accompanying recommendation proposed that it should not be financed from Council Tax money but instead that we should use some of the profits of the Council's energy company, Thameswey and that outside funding could also be sought from various sources.

I'm very pleased to be able to tell you that the O&S Committee agreed to send those recommendations forward to the Executive Committee for their approval before handing it over to Thameswey for implementation.

It struck me today when my wife came home from a shopping expedition loaded with bags and boxes and all sorts of surplus packaging that it would have been better if she'd left it all in the shop. BUT..... then I thought that actually, businesses have to pay to recycle so it stands to reason that many of them probably don't bother with it, so if you want to be sure that the packaging your stuff came with really gets recycled then it's actually better to bring it home and deal with it yourself.

Of course it would be better if manufacturers would cut down on packaging but at the moment that's on the wish list. The reality is, as we stand, that packaging is a fact of life and if we buy a product that has packaging it's our own responibility to make sure it gets recycled.

The litter in Victoria Rd. near the Londis shop seems an almost insoluble problem. It doesn't seem to matter how often it gets cleared up, within a day or two it's as bad as ever.  The same goes for the green, especially in warm weather.

Is it really too much to ask that people use the bins provided or even take their rubbish home? Do they really think it's acceptable to throw it down where ever they happen to be standing and leave it for somebody else to clear up their mess?