Opinion : Are too many visits being made to Household Recycling Centres in Buckinghamshire?
Did you know that during 2020/21 over 1,000,000 visits were made to Household Recycling Centres in Buckinghamshire?
Indeed it surprised my good self too, but that’s the total of combined visits to the nine HRC’s in Buckinghamshire according to an article that appeared in the news section of this sire recently headlined ‘More than 1 million visits made to Household Recycling Centres in Buckinghamshire during 2020/21‘.
Yours truly still can’t get my head around that figure but to me it’s shocking. Let’s put it into perspective.
Let’s suppose the average journey to the HRC was 1 mile in length – half a mile there and half a mile back – (yes, I know that a mile is probably not an accurate figure but the distance is only being used to demonstrate a point) that means that the people of Buckinghamshire travelled a million miles in a year just to dump their excess waste!
Let’s suppose the average car emits 141.9g/km of CO2 and (with 1,000,000 miles = approx. 625,000 km) that’s roughly 88,687.5 metric tonnes of CO2 emitted into the beautiful Buckinghamshire atmosphere to satisfy the disposal of excess waste by the people of Buckinghamshire.
But how many people live within half a mile of the HRC? If the average journey to the dump was 2 miles (a mile there and a mile back) the figures double with 2,000,000 miles travelled just to dispose of excess waste and 177,375 metric tonnes of CO2 emitted into the beautiful Buckinghamshire atmosphere.
Even to someone like my good self who isn’t really concerned about green issues or environmentalism those figures are shocking. Indeed I find them disgusting.
The aforementioned news article contained a quote part of which was:
‘A million visits go to show how important the Household Recycling Centres are to local people and we are happy we can provide that service to them.‘
Well, here’s a quote from my good self on the million visit figure:
‘A million visits a year to the HRC’s in Buckinghamshire goes to show the massive failure of the operation to collect refuse and waste from the doorstep of residential homes and, in order to dispose of their waste, residents are ending up causing large amounts of unnecessary pollution to the environment by visiting the HRC’s.
Indeed I am of the opinion that the million visit figure is shameful and something needs to be done.
Those overseeing this mess and with the power to act should be holding their heads in shame rather than being ‘happy at providing the service’.
Isn’t it time the municipal authorities ramped up the household bin collection services in Buckinghamshire to counteract so many visits to the HRC’s?
At the moment in the Wycombe Area there is a charge of £50 just to take away one extra item on a ‘bulky waste collection‘. Surely this figure needs to be lowered?
Perhaps there should be a return to weekly black bin collections to protect the environment?
In my opinion the ‘million visit’ statistic is nothing to be proud of and as much as possible of the waste should be collected from the doorsteps using the normal refuse collection services.
What do you think?
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