Pickles' Waste policy criticised by Lord Deben

Lord Deben, who as John Gummer led the environment department under John Major's government, believes the current coalition has behaved wrongly in its attempts to enforce weekly collections, blaming a lack of cohesion on how to handle resources as a leading reason for the failure.

He commented: "The determination of Mr Pickles to return to a weekly general collection has not been successful – and people said it wasn’t sensible. We should instead be encouraging them to reduce their general waste. What you should have is a fortnightly collection of general waste and a more regular one of organics waste of all kinds."

Lord Deben has also backed recent calls for a cross-departmental Office for Resource Management. He said: "I like it a lot because I think you need to concentrate on resources. But this has not been a priority for DCLG. It has not seen that it has a place in all these issues: food waste, climate change etc. DCLG has not understood this is a central issue."

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