Sidmouth environmental campaigner spills the beans on becoming a councillor

I've now been a councillor for East Devon District Council and Sidmouth Town Council for just over a month, and it's been a steep learning curve!

The first week was taken up with induction meetings for EDDC – meeting all the other councillors and officers of the council, training etc. We've had one EDDC meeting and two town council meetings so far, and some of it has been enjoyable, some tedious if I'm honest, but I hope I can make a difference.

At town council level, we have already agreed to have a green or eco committee, name to be decided, and I am definitely on that, and at District level I am on the Waste and Recycling Board, and have already had a very interesting trip around the Recycling Centre at Greendale, where I got to ask many questions and got useful answers to nearly all of them.

We do very well compared to other councils at East Devon, when it comes to recycling, but of course we can always do better. I have always had my doubts about where recycling goes, and about how we should be concentrating on the other Rs first – Refuse, Reduce, Refill and Reuse – with Recycling a poor fifth. But we still need to do it, and we could all do it better.

The main message that came out to me from my visit is how it is a process totally led by us, the public. We need to have clear information about what CAN'T go in our recycling – Pringles tubes, pill blister packs, clear plastic film such as on top of microwave meals etc – which we saw plenty of in the system.

Steel and aluminium are the perfect things to recycle, so baked bean tins (washed out, label removed, tin inside) are examples of the perfect closed cycle – they get made back into tins and it is more efficient to do that than to make new ones. Same with fizzy pop cans – aluminium gets a good price on the open market, and again the aluminium is turned back into cans again.

Plastics are a different matter of course. There are so many types for a start and we know the public are very confused about what can and can't be recycled.

No wonder – no two councils do the same as each other! But recent government consultations with all parties (public, conservation groups, councils and processors) are going to be published soon (second draft out in the Autumn) and this ought to bring all councils into alignment, and pave the way for Deposit Recycling Schemes and Extended Producer Liability schemes which will revolutionise the recycling system by 2023.

I still have concerns that the recycling cycle is driven by market forces – so if the bottom drops out of prices of plastic, and nobody wants a particular type, what happens then?

I firmly believe we need to stop making new plastic for single use (such as all our single use plastic drinks bottles) and then recycled plastic will have a value, and recycling will become the only way to make anything from plastic. But that is a very brave move and I can't see it happening any time soon unfortunately.

With programmes like War on Plastic with Hugh and Anita on BBC1 this week, maybe it will happen sooner than I thought, as I'm getting into conversations about plastic with people who previously had no interest in the subject!

I was litter picking the other night and a lady stopped to talk, and said: 'Did you know there was plastic in wipes?' Yes, of course I did know that, I've made it my business to get educated about all of this, but I am DELIGHTED that she now knows it! I then told her about teabags being made with plastic woven through them too and she went away looking very shocked.

Anyway, I'm happy to be on the inside of the council and to play my part in making changes. We need to be bold and brave and make choices which will have a beneficial effect on our planet and our society, not always putting money first. It's a tricky tightrope to walk and it won't be easy to convert everyone but we have to try.

Written by Denise Bickley - District and Town Councillor for Sidmouth