Residents' view

May I clarify a report in last week's Gazette which indicatedthat I stated the person who made the contract for the SomersetWaste Partnership was mad, bad or stupid.

I was reporting to a public meeting in Axbridge the views that anumber of residents had expressed to me and other councillors aboutthe Somerset Waste Partnership. I was not expressing my own views.

I have been asked who drew up the contract because it didn't doany favours for council tax payers in our county.

The general perception is that the contractors, Viridor, can bepaid up to three times for handling the same recycleable item. Ifa resident takes a gas cylinder, for instance, to the Cheddarrecycling centre they will be charged at least Pounds 6 to leave itthere. Viridor can then return the cylinder to its manufacturerand claim the deposit originally paid on it, or simply sell it asscrap metal; either way they get a second slice of income from it. Viridor can then charge the Somerset Waste Partnership for handlingthis recycleable item and receive a third slice of income from thesame gas cylinder.

Soon after the Somerset Waste Partnership came into being I askedhow the income from recycling would be distributed between thecounty and the five district councils. I was informed that profitswere not expected but if the contractor, Viridor, did show a profiton recycling our waste they were obliged, under the terms of thecontract, to share it with the Somerset Waste Partnership.

At last week's public meeting in Axbridge we were unable to priseout of representatives from the partnership and Viridor any detailsof income from recycling. In fact I was left with the impressionthat the partnership has been duped into believing that allrecycleable material is a liability with a cost rather than an assetwith a value.

In Axbridge we have been separating food waste for about fouryears because, we were assured, it would go into an anaerobicdigester to produce gas to generate electricity and a useful compostmaterial. Four years on and the digester is still a dream. Ourfood waste, we are told, goes out of the county for anotherauthority or contractor to get the benefit of its potential.

Baz Hamblin

Axbridge