A move to cut the cost of garden recycling for some of Exeter’s poorest households has been kicked into the long grass.
The city’s Green Party councillors had backed a motion proposing to offer discounted brown bins for recycling garden waste to people on low incomes and in receipt of council tax relief.
But the motion was defeated after members of the Labour administration said the money to pay for it would have to come off other council spending budgets.
The motion was put forward by Cllr Gill Baker (Green, Pennsylvania), who said it would be a ‘compassionate step towards reducing inequality, supporting environmental sustainability and improving the quality of life for all residents’.
She told a full council meeting: “I don’t think people should have to choose whether to eat or dispose of their green waste responsibly.
“We heard in last month’s budget report that our green waste service is currently making a surplus, so this is a good time to assess the feasibility of reducing the cost of brown bins to those in financial difficulty and increase the uptake in the service.
“Although at £49 a year Exeter has one of the most affordable brown bin services in the South West, this is still a huge amount of money for someone living on the breadline.”
Cllr Ruth Williams (Lab, Mincinglake and Whipton) said the city’s charges for the service compared favourably with its neighbouring councils, and if the discounts were offered, the money would have to be found from budgets elsewhere.
Cllr Diana Moore (Green, St Davids) said the motion was only calling for the effect of the discount to be assessed at this stage.
“We are saying this is something we can all get behind, because it makes a difference for the environment and for our residents,” she said.
But Cllr Duncan Wood (Lab, Pinhoe) said instead of selecting people for discounts, the best thing the council could do was to make the service as cheap as possible.
“Everyone is facing a cost of living crisis at some level,” he said. “Times are hard.
“The best thing that we can do as a council is to bring the cost of this as low as we can for everybody.”
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