Changes were rolled out in February to the borough’s waste collection: a move to fortnightly collection of plastics, bottles and tins that residents tell us will mean their green boxes will be overflowing and, on the other hand, a new oversized blue-lidded bin for paper and card that many residents have complained they don’t have room for and would take most households weeks to fill. And now, a line in the budget confirming that green bio bags (food caddy liners) are not going to be supplied free by the council.

No doubt the current administration, ‘the people in power’, would tell us that tough decisions have to be taken, that there’s a cost for everything, nothing is ‘free’. So what would the supply of green bags cost the Kingston council tax payer? Well, 26p for a month’s worth of food bin liners, that help make recycling food waste easier and more pleasant and keeping up the rates of recycling the Lib Dems are proud to have established in their time in administration.

We don’t believe that residents should have to pay for their food waste liners on top of council tax. Waste that goes in landfill costs us as a borough £80 per tonne*. And food waste is heavy. So the ‘savings’ will be undercut by the extra landfill tax the borough will have to pay. It doesn’t make sense. Liberal Democrat councillors argued against this cut, amongst others to other vital services we believe it is the council’s duty to maintain, at last night’s Budget Council, but the cuts were passed.

What does this small item in the budget say about how much the administration really cares about the environment? The message it sends is that recycling doesn’t matter. Already the recycling pods are being removed from our town centres. This is the thin end of the wedge and a short-sighted and unnecessary cut.

* The reason the government introduced the landfill tax are firstly, because space for landfill is in short supply and secondly, greenhouse gases caused by landfill waste, particularly the release of methane by decomposing food, is a major accelerant of climate change.