THE Darlington Borough Council cabinet has decided to close down without consultation all but three remaining “local” recycling facilities.

There were, until November 7, eight such sites/facilities dotted around Darlington enabling people to recycle without having to make specific journey to the Whessoe Road tip run by the Wade Group.

The eight “local” recycling facilities are serviced by J&B Ltd and it charges the council a princely total of £8,000 a year. This is very reasonable when one considers the wide spectrum of recyclables that can be placed in their co-mingled bins, unlike the tightly prescriptive items that can be placed in one’s recycling wheelie bin or Wade bins at the tip. One would like to think that Wade worked for the council but it is in effect the other way round. Wade goes out of its way to make life easy for itself and thereby limit the scope of what can be recycled.

The facility I know best is the one at Morrisons’ Morton Park, which is heavily used, and I have been using if for many years apart from a short hiatus earlier in the year when the council arbitrarily closed it without notice and while trying to blame Morrisons. It realised its mistake and rapidly reopened it. By combining one’s shopping journey with using the recycling facility one is being environmentally responsible.

The cabinet’s crass decision in indefensible. It will ensure, at a stroke, a reduction in the volume of recycling and a commensurate increase in the volume going to landfill.

The increase in landfill will have to be paid for. We have got used to the council’s profligate ways while reducing the attraction of living in Darlington. It is hell bent on moving the Crown Street library and is prepared to borrow £1.6m to do so. Even at the current low interest rates, it will have to pay £4,000 a year, half the cost of the “local” recycling sites which are useful and regularly used.

Rodney Burges, Merrybent, Darlington