Cutting-edge campaigning: David Cameron, a bin and a saw

Julian Kirby

01 April 2011

If you read your local rag you might have come across a shot of David Cameron sawing a bin in half on the high street recently.

Of course it wasn't the man himself. It would have been your local Friends of the Earth group, chopping a mocked-up bin in half to symbolise the need to cut how much households to throw away.

Whether it's the phone that seems built to break, the toothbrush or toy that can't be recycled, or the plastic bottle that's collected for recycling at your friend-down-the-road's house but not where you live - this sort of needless waste is something we could all do without.

So what we were doing was telling Cameron that if he really wants to lead the 'greenest government ever' then getting waste policy right is the basic test he has to pass.

And all over the country other groups, businesses and members of the public were sending that message to the Prime Minister.

Most people want to be able to recycle what they don't need any more, or better still send it to be reused by someone else. And no one wants to deal with needless waste - like excess packaging or badly designed products.

Cutting down on waste, through prevention, reuse and recycling, would save Britain's businesses and households billions of pounds a year - and create tens of thousands of new jobs. It would also help reduce our impact on natural systems.

Councils wouldn't have to spend so much on dealing with our rubbish. That would free them up to spend our money on the things we elected them to - like libraries and care homes. Not landfills and hugely expensive and dirty incinerators.

But the Government has to be clear that becoming less wasteful is the direction we are to head in. Councils and businesses can then plan accordingly, knowing the Government will support them.

We're not out to mock Cameron, just tell him he has a simple but extremely important choice to make: whether to listen to the minority of people who want the so-called right to be wasteful, or to the majority who want to be free of rubbish and the costs of dealing with it. 

The Government's Waste Review reports this May. The Prime Minister should set a goal to halve household black-bag waste by 2020 - with a similar ambition for business waste.

Mr Cameron: it's time to talk half as much rubbish.

Julian Kirby, Resource Use Team