Labour should bottle-it more often

8.17.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 18th Jun 2008

Amazingly, in this day and age, there is a severe shortage of bottles available for turning into new bottles - and it's hard to think of a greener way of recycling than that.

Yet with so much co-mingled recycling going on, bottles are being contaminated with other rubbish and can only be used again as hardcore for roads and pavements. Not for making new bottles.

Lambeth has 40 recycling stations around the borough but nearly all now accept only co-mingled recycling rather than the once familiar bottle banks that separated green, brown and clear bottles at source.

Many residents dutifully recycling their bottles or encouraging their children to do so will be surprised and disappointed that so many bottles are either going into landfill or ending up as industrial hardcore because they are not pure enough for producing brand new bottles.

Liberal Democrats want to see more bottle banks back in use in Lambeth because it is greener and more sustainable to do so. Lambeth needs to be more much imaginative and needs to raise its game if it is to stand any chance of becoming London's Greenest Borough.

Councillor Brian Palmer said, "I'm appalled that Labour is bottling-it over the green agenda. If there is a shortage of bottles for recycling into new bottles, there is a simple solution. Bring back the bottle banks."