Agenda item

That this Council:-

(a)       notes the recent YouGov survey commissioned by the Resource Association, which demonstrated that 73 per cent of adults did not know where the waste ended up, with 68 per cent saying they would like more information;

(b)       therefore supports the Resource Association’s End Destination of Recycling Charter, which encourages local authorities and companies to publish an annual register of the end point to its recyclables;

(c)        welcomes the hard work of Rebecca Taylor MEP to promote the Charter across Yorkshire and The Humber; and

(d)       calls upon the Council to sign up to the Charter with immediate effect.

It was moved by Councillor Shaffaq Mohammed, seconded by Councillor Penny Baker, that this Council:-

(a)       notes the recent YouGov survey commissioned by the Resource Association, which demonstrated that 73 per cent of adults did not know where the waste ended up, with 68 per cent saying they would like more information;

(b)       therefore supports the Resource Association’s End Destination of Recycling Charter, which encourages local authorities and companies to publish an annual register of the end point to its recyclables;

(c)        welcomes the hard work of Rebecca Taylor MEP to promote the Charter across Yorkshire and The Humber; and

(d)       calls upon the Council to sign up to the Charter with immediate effect.

Whereupon, it was moved by Councillor Jack Scott, seconded by Councillor Ibrar Hussain, as an amendment, that the Motion now submitted be amended by the deletion of all the words after the words “That this Council” and the substitution of the following words therefor:-

(a)       is committed to supporting Sheffielders to recycle and therefore deplores the record of the previous Administration who increased recycling by less than 2.5% between 2008 and 2011 and believes this is just another example of their three wasted years;

(b)       notes that these poor recycling levels under the previous Administration are despite spending an additional £2 million on recycling services which was made possible due to the investment in local public services by the previous Government;

(c)        believes that the incompetence of the previous Administration contributed to this failure to significantly improve recycling rates, which is demonstrated by ill-thought through initiatives which clearly made it harder for Sheffielders to recycle, such as the blue boxes for paper and card, a decision made when the present Leader of the Main Opposition Group was the Cabinet Member for waste management between 2008-2010;

(d)       welcomes the present Administration’s campaign to improve recycling in Sheffield whilst moving to Alternate Week Collections with measures such as the roll out of flexible choice for blue bins and boxes, increasing staffing in the Veolia call centre and the work of the liaison team to support Sheffield people to use the full range of facilities available;

(e)       welcomes recent reductions in the amount of waste sent to landfill and acknowledges that this is now at a record low under the present Administration; and

(f)         will therefore continue to take real action to support Sheffielders to recycle instead of taking the approach of the previous Administration and main opposition group pledging to transform recycling rates but failing to do so and believes that the Liberal Democrat Party both locally and nationally has an ever increasing reputation for breaking pledges across a range of policy areas.

On being put to the vote, the amendment was carried.

The original Motion, as amended, was then put as a Substantive Motion in the following form and carried:-