Waste Special Interest Group Green Butterfly

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Last updated:
2 December 2008
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The Waste special interest group has around 10 members (known affectionately as the ‘wasters’) of which three are professionally involved in the waste management industry in some form or another.
In line with the ethos of the Scottish Government in encouraging the Scottish public to ‘Do a Little Change a Lot’ the Group has agreed to follow the policy adopted by the main Forum to limit themselves to tackling a few issues.

Proposal 1 We offered to Aberdeenshire Council to openly support them in the development of their Integrated Sustainable Waste Management Strategy and other policies where we agreed with their proposals.

The other side of that coin is however that we will openly criticise the Council where we do not agree with what they are doing and in that case we would hope to be able to suggest alternatives, in most situations.

Proposal 2 In June 2007, we established the Aberdeenshire Litter Initiative ALi.
This is a scheme encourages individuals, groups and business within Aberdeenshire to ‘adopt a street' or area of public open space and to keep it clear of litter. To aid in this, we supply volunteers with safety guidance, a litter picking stick and a Hi Viz vest.

(More details of the scheme can be found here)

The Initiative has the support of Aberdeenshire Council, Keep Scotland Beautiful (KSB), and a number of local organizations and business. It is seeking funding from any source - public, private or business - with an initial target of kitting out at least 1000 volunteers. We believe that there are already thousands of public spirited people who pick up litter in an unsung way.

The formal launch of the Initiative took place on 11 June 2007, and was assisted by Provost Bill Howatson and John Summers, Chief Executive of KSB. A more detailed report of the launch can be seen here

Ali is now going strong in a number of Communities across Aberdeenshire with a smattering across the rural areas. We are active in attempting to identify other groups and individuals to encourage, support and enable then to ‘do their bit ‘ for the local environment. We are working closely with the Community Planning staff of the Council to reach out to other groups and organizations.

Stonehaven & District Community Council were first to get their own Stonehaven 'Adopt a Street' Scheme up and running. This was closely followed by Inverurie, Westhill, and the village of Rothienorman whose Community Association has achieved 100% coverage of the streets, footpaths and public spaces in the village.

Dec 2008 Update
The number of volunteers in Ali and the affiliated organizations stands at 266

Our Report to Aberdeenshire Council may be seen here

Proposal 3 We have sought to question the Council officers on concerns we had about the Internal Waste Audit carried out at the behest of the Scottish Executive. We have failed to receive what we regard as a satisfactory response and have passed our findings on to the relevant authorities including the Scottish Executive who paid for the audit with taxpayers money. We can now only watch this space to see if the Council change the less than satisfactory behaviours identified in their own report.

Dec 2008 Update. We have had a series of protracted discussions with Senior officers of the Council about their own internal waste practices. It seems that Council staff at work are not as good at recycling etc as they and other members of the public are at home. The Council as the largest employer in Aberdeenshire does not appear to feel that it is appropriate to take a firm line with their own staff as they did with the householders by reducing the frequency of collection of residual waste - a proposal wholly supported by the Forum.

As senior officers do not convey the impression of wanting to practise what they preach, the Forum has now decided to take the case for more courageous action on reduction and recycling by their own staff direct to the elected members. To their credit, it was the elected members who instructed officers to introduce more challenging targets for households.

Proposal 4 The waste group contributed to a questionnaire sent to all 128 prospective candidates in the recent local elections. The questionnaire covered a range of environmental matters in addition to waste. The main aims were to attempt to get an insight into the candidate’s views on environmental issues, to offer the Forum as a source of independent advice and to highlight some issues that we believe require more scrutiny.

The response was disappointing with only 20 individual candidates responding. This is equivalent to 16%. Some party responses were received.

From coverage in the local press, including quotes from some outgoing Council members, it seems that the questionnaire caused a bit of a stir. Hopefully, having their dander up a bit will give the environment a higher profile with more action being taken on the ground by the next Council than by previous ones. Signing protocols and commitments is all very well if the budgetary and staffing resource commitments are not available to implement them.

The offer of advice on environmental matters to the Council applies to all individuals and non commercial organisations in Aberdeenshire. We will try to help within the limits of being unpaid volunteers who care about the environment to give freely of part of their time.