Reading BC is under pressure to increase the amount of glass it recycles. For years it has collected all the kerbside recycling in a red bins provided free to each household. The recycling materials are then sorted at the new Materials Recycling Facility in Smallmead. Glass is excluded from this collection system as it would shatter and create a hazard for anyone sorting the recycled material by hand (and even in Smallmead some of the sorting is indeed done by hand). So for years now tonnes of glass are thrown into the grey non-recycled bins and end up in landfill. It is one of the major components of the waste that Reading sends to landfill.

The answer the council have come up with is to put out many more bottle banks around the town to try and encourage people to recycle more of their glass bottles. That is a good aim but convincing local residents that a bottle bank close to their house is a good thing can be a bit tricky. Sending out letters explaining the reasoning behind the bottle banks has not generally produced a flood of comments being fed back to the council.

The council have identified 3 potential sites in Tilehurst for bottle banks. The first one in Harvaston Parade got very little response (only 6 out of 50 letters sent out) so the local Lib Dem team sprang into action and surveyed the houses near the proposed site, door to door. The result was 21 residents in favour and 16 against and whatever the result it was a lot more representative than the council’s letter responses.

More recently sites were proposed atoutside the Horticultural Society Hall in Gratwicke Road and on the green in Lansdowne Road. Again the council’s response rate to its letters has not been brilliant. Again the local Lib Dems carried out surveys and found that residents in Gratwicke Road were 15 against to 14 for the bottle bank whilst over in Lansdowne Road there was a big majority, 9 to 2, against the bottle bank. In fact on the latter site there appears to be a petition now being circulated to oppose the bottle bank.

All of which goes to prove that if you want residents’ opinions on local issues, the best way to find out is to go and talk to them. Relying on folk to write back is not good enough.