Would you be interested in becoming a Conservative councillor?

Are you a Conservative who wants to improve your local area? If so, you are an ideal candidate to become a Conservative councillor.

Becoming a councillor is a uniquely rewarding experience. It gives you the opportunity to help your local community and be part of a dedicated team providing key services for your area.

Being a councillor is also a great way to gain political experience and useful skills in public speaking, debating and problem solving.

Serving councillors are a broad mix of people from the local community. By becoming a councillor, you really can make a difference to your local community.

Who may become a councillor?

To be eligible you must be:

-A British subject or a citizen of the Irish Republic or the EU and resident in the UK.
-At least eighteen years old on the day you are nominated.
-Either on the electoral register for the council area in which you are seeking election, or have lived or worked in that council area for at least the last twelve months.
-A member of the Conservative Party. If you have not already done so, you will need to become a member of the Conservative Party.

If you are interested then drop me an email: mike@mikeflower.com

Contamination issues and brown bin expansion

Recently there has been an increase in contamination of some recycling loads in the Borough. This means that some households are putting food waste, nappies and even excrement into the green recycling bins. When it’s tipped onto the wagon it contaminates the whole load and that means it gets rejected by the recycling contractors and costs significantly extra to dispose of. The Council provides the services to collect all these items, we just need people to take a minute to put them in the right bin.

I don’t want the Council to not collect bins – we just need a small minority to help the rest of us by doing their bit.

The brown bin expansion was approved this evening by Cabinet. That will bring the total to 102,000 households with a garden waste service and should be everyone that needs one. It will be in place for Spring next year so good news for those extra 20,000 households. I think the waste collection service in Walsall provides a really good offering to residents. Most people don’t realise that garden waste is not a statutory service and some councils charge residents extra for the service, charge them to buy their first bin or don’t even provide a garden kerbside collection at all. Value for money.

So what next to improve the waste system?

Blogging fatigue and brown bins…

I have been experiencing a bout of blogging fatigue recently. Any tips on how to beat blogging fatigue would be gratefully received. This is my attempt to kickstart blogging!

You may remember I asked for your thoughts in August on how to improve the waste collection service. See: http://mikeflower.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/what-next-for-rubbish-collection/

I’m pleased to say that tomorrow night (Wed) I am asking Cabinet to approve the completion of the brown bin (garden waste) service across the Borough. Here is an extract from the press announcement:

“We now have an excellent opportunity to make further headway in our recycling service which is already up there with some of the best in the country.

“We have already seen recycling rates improve dramatically since the introduction of our new waste service at the beginning of the year and we are on target to be recycling 45% of all household waste by the end of 2009 – five years earlier than required.

“The expansion of the brown bin service would help take us up to the next level, as well as meet demand from local people and create a much fairer, borough-wide service for residents.

“It is also an opportunity to further reduce the amount of waste that is dumped in landfill sites, which can contribute towards global warming and significant negative impact on the environment.”

Have a read about it here: http://www.walsall.gov.uk/news/garden_waste_recycling_scheme_to_be_extended.htm

Any other thoughts on how the Council should improve the waste collection system next?