By Phil Binns
AS Wokemoreland & Farcical Council continues its frankly mad cap drive to single-handedly save the planet, some extremely embarrassing news has just snuck out about the “piss poor” recycling rates in Barrow.
While thousands of residents in the Penrith and Eden areas dutifully sort all of their recycling correctly – matching their neighbours in South Lakeland – it’s a wholly different story in Barrow and Furness.
Talented Local Democracy Reporter Daniel Hunt has just revealed that 41% of the recycling put out by residents in the People’s Democratic Republik of Barrovia goes STRAIGHT to the incinerator or landfill having been “rejected” by waste handlers as “unsuitable” for recycling.
In one year alone, 1,900 tonnes of Barrovian rubbish was disposed of in this way having been lumped in with the recycling.
(The new W&F Council has been in business for two years so you can probably double that to 3,800 tonnes.)
To put 1,900 tonnes into perspective in an old skool newspaper-styleey it’s about the equivalent of 100 double decker buses being set on fire or buried!
This is all massive pie-in-the-face for the worthy but frightfully dull Lib Dem chin strokers running W&F from leafy Kendal. They are now getting a painful lesson in recycling attitudes out Barrow way.
The Lib Dem dictatorship came into power at W&F making all kinds of lofty and smug predictions about how their new Council would be: “At the forefront of tackling Climate Change” and would ensure a “Green and biodiverse environment.”
(*Spits coffee 10ft across room)
The Council has also managed to assemble a Climate Change and Nature Department stuffed with an astonishing 15 members of staff.
It also has two directors being paid up to £87k each and supposedly in charge of Waste & Environment, and Climate & Nature, as the filth builds up in Barrow’s back streets and rats take their pick of snacks.
No one can blame Council staff or leaders for what Barrovians do/do not put in their various bins but perhaps these figures might serve to rein in the unbridled hubris of the Council’s famed Eco-preacher, Cllr Giles Archibald.
He is not yet known to burst into people’s homes and exhort them to turn off all their devices and start worshipping Greta, but it can’t be far off.
And perhaps all of these Council staff sitting around candles sipping Soya lattes in cycling shorts might be better employed going door-to-door in the outer darkness and showing Barrow residents the difference between a plastic bottle and a piece of paper.
Because some people can’t separate one from the other.
Follow the Chronic on social media to get posts direct.
thecumbriachronic.co.uk 
You must be logged in to post a comment.