Getting single use plastics banned at NHDC

When you decide to stand for election you have a lot of ‘what if I’m elected’ thoughts, you think about the commitment on your time, the impact the work will have on your life, both professional and personal, but for me the biggest thing was lots of thoughts about what can I do to make a positive difference for Hitchin, the wider constituency and indeed the whole of North Hertfordshire.

Those thoughts and ideas were manifold and it is not possible to list them all here. However I would like to detail a couple of ones about the environment, because these are ideas which have now become reality (and there will be many more!). This blog post I hope will give a little insight into how things are done at Council level.

Part 1 – Plastics!

I am deeply concerned by the damage our society is doing to our environment, we are too wasteful, too polluting, and so much of this is unnecessary. It is a global problem, but as a District Councillor I realised it was possible to make a small but significant change locally.

I was appalled when I attended my first Council meeting as a Councillor rather than as a member of the public. Almost everyone in attendance was drinking water or coffee from single use disposable cups, something which is not only wasteful but costs the tax payer more than normal mugs and glasses.

So I set out to get them banned, and after consulting with some local experts and some national experts as well as the North Herts Green Party and the Green Lib Dems I put together a motion to Council which if approved would see single use plastics banned in all NHDC facilities.

This would mean no single use plastics in the Council offices, NHDC owned community centres and leisure centres as well as any other facilities operated the authority, and typically I set an ambitious target!

The exact wording of that motion is as follows (it was seconded by Cllr Paul Clark):

“Council Instructs the Chief Executive to produce an action plan to:

a) Minimise the Council’s use of plastics and to eliminate the use of single use plastics by the end of 2019.

b) Require all of the council’s suppliers and contractors to remove single use plastics from their products and packaging as soon as possible, but within 5 years.

c) Work with local businesses and retailers to:
– eliminate the use of single use plastic within the local authority area
– reduce the use of plastic in packaging and work towards the removal of plastic from packaging
– encourage them to require their suppliers to remove plastic from their products and from packaging.

We also call on the Council to work with other public bodies and large employers to inform people of the environmental damage caused by plastics and promoting the reasons for using the alternatives.”

As I said it was quite ambitious, and the North Herts Conservative party did not much like it, indeed they tabled an amendment which would have essentially rendered the motion pointless.

This amendment changed part A of my motion to read as follows:
Minimise the Council’s use of plastics and to eliminate the use of single use plastics and replace with sustainable alternatives as soon as possible.

Now on the face of it this all seems fine but in reality ‘as soon as possible’ is a phrase open to interpretation, without a deadline it seemed clear to me that nothing would happen. I believe this was the intent, to water down the motion to the point where it could be ignored. However with the Conservative majority at NHDC the amendment was carried, and the whole motion would have been rendered pointless. So I decided (to many groans from the Conservative benches) to amend the amendment, I argued that there must be a deadline for this motion to serve any purpose. My amendment to the amendment read:

Minimise the Council’s use of plastics and to eliminate the use of single use plastics and replace with sustainable alternatives by 2022.

I plucked the year out of the air as I was on the spot, I prefer to give a lot more thought to these things but I was on the spot, it was this or the motion would fail. Fortunately this seemed to be enough to pacify the Conservatives and the following revised version was accepted.

But the Conservatives were not done yet. One of the most ambitious parts of this was now in the crosshairs of the Tories. They wanted the following line removed completely.

“Request all of the council’s suppliers and contractors to remove single use plastics from their products and packaging as soon as possible.”

They argued that we could not demand that suppliers do this, after all some of the Council’s suppliers were huge companies. I responded pointing out that the bigger the company the bigger the impact of this motion, which can only be a good thing, but it was clear that the Conservatives wanted to block it despite the fact that this would only require the Council to request the removal of single use plastics.

Ultimately the Service Director – Legal and Community (a lawyer) advised that the Council would not be able to pre-qualify contractors regarding their use of single use plastics, unless it was relevant to the performance of that contract. This also applied to the evaluation stage as this could only be used if it related to the performance of the contract.

After all of this the final motion was passed as follows:

RESOLVED:
That the Chief Executive be instructed to produce an action plan to:

a) Minimise the Council’s use of plastics and to eliminate the use of single use plastics and replace with sustainable alternatives by 2022.

b) Request all of the council’s suppliers and contractors to remove single use plastics from their products and packaging as soon as possible.

c) Work with local businesses and retailers to

1. eliminate the use of single use plastic within the local authority area
2. reduce the use of plastic in packaging and work towards the removal of plastic from packaging
3. encourage them to require their suppliers to remove plastic from their products and from packaging.

The Council will also work with other public bodies and large employers to inform people of the environmental damage caused by plastics and promoting the reasons for using the alternatives.”

While I am still waiting for the formal action plan, the Council officers have made some real steps in the right direction. The disposable plastic cups have been removed and replaced with some neat branded glasses, and the disposable coffee cups have been replaced with proper mugs. But there is still much more to do. When the action plan is produced I’ll post here about it in more detail.