LETTER TO THE EDITOR: An air of dark secrecy surrounds waste disposal

Many years ago when I was trying to find how Rotherham worked, I contacted our waste disposal department (by phone, and through at the first try!) to ask what we did with our rubbish. I was put straight through to an enthusiastic representative who explained in detail the percentages how much of what went where, was sent by post a leaflet describing the methods of disposal and describing their determination to reduce landfill, and a questionnaire asking me to vote and comment on the various disposal methods.

I returned the completed questionnaire and was left fully informed and feeling I may even have helped to keep the wheels in motion! However, several weeks ago, after reading accounts of illegal dumping, fly tipping, local opposition to the reopening of long abandoned tips, toxic and otherwise, missed waste collections etc, I decided to repeat my exercise of many years ago. What a change. Telephone contacts impossible, e-mail enquiries unacknowledged and unanswered, blank screens and silent telephones the only responses, and an air of dark secrecy over the entire council operations, except for a website to which I was constantly referred but which told me absolutely nothing that I wanted to know.

So I am appealing now to any readers, council or otherwise, who can either answer my queries or put me in contact with someone who can, as to the present state of play, and what has since happened, if anything, about all those shiny plans for the future of our waste disposal and reclamation services that I was told of before.

Regarding Clive Phillips, it seems he objects to me revealing that he lies, so I have a compromise. In our Parliament, everyone is supposed to be an “Honourable Member” and incapable of mendacity, so no MP is ever allowed to call another one a liar, he/she can say only that the other MP is “mistaken”. So in future when I read in his letters a deviation from the truth I will not say that he lies, but merely suggest that he is “mistaken”.

Also, if the time comes and I have room to deviate from important subjects to the 153 (to date) questions, allegations and insinuations he has directed at me or the organisation for which I write (yes, I haven’t dodged any of them, merely listed and stored them for later), I will extend the same Parliamentary courtesy to them also.

Charles David Foulstone, Rotherham Green Party