Councillor’s lotto ‘joke’ controversy

Jun 6 2008 by Jenny Wood

A PERTHSHIRE councillor “joked” that environmentally conscious residents of the county could turn into litter-louts if more lottery-style tickets are dished out to reward recycling efforts.

During a discussion on ways to encourage more residents to recycle, Strathmore councillor Alan Grant rubbished a suggestion by Councillor Peter Barrett to enhance proposals further.

The council is looking at offering incentives to locals to go green by extending its ‘raffle ticket for recycling’ prize draw.

At present people who take their garden waste to Perth and Kinross’s recycling centres are issued with a ticket to a monthly draw, now the council will roll the scheme out further to householders dropping off any recyclable or compostable material.

The cost of introducing the incentives will equate to diverting just 170 tonnes of waste from landfill.

Enthused by the idea, Councillor Peter Barrett suggested residents rolling up to recycling centres should be rewarded for each separate type of material they drop off to encourage more to sort more rubbish.

“Sometimes you have to think outside the box,” said Councillor Barrett.

“And I think the current scheme is more of a mystery than a lottery.

“How about if someone turns up with – say paper, garden waste, glass, plastics and cans – they could get five tickets, one for each stream?” he suggested.

“This would increase your chance of winning a prize and encourage more recycling,” explained the Perth councillor.

But Councillor Alan Grant – convenor of the council’s environment committee – immediately shot the suggestion down in flames with a shock response.

“On a bonny day you would have all your windows open and all the tickets could fly out, causing more litter,” he said.

Just moments earlier in the discussion a comment by Councillor Grant was met with gasps from members of the environment committee.

Out of the blue, the Strathmore representative warned: “The man who said, when I told him the rubbish coming from his house was his responsibility, that I was impudent and insolent, might not get his bins emptied for a month,” he threatened.

“I wouldn’t do that, I wouldn’t do that,” Councillor Grant then muttered as shocked committee members gasped.

When the PA confronted the leader of the committee afterwards to explain his startling outbursts, Councillor Grant stated: “In both cases my comments were clearly jocular and nothing substantive should be taken from either of them.”

He went on to explain: “As to the tickets and ‘litter’, my minor joke was that if people got a sheaf of tickets and then drove out of the site with their car window open – as on a nice day like today – it might lead to a litter problem. Can you really believe I was being serious?” he appealed.

Councillor Grant continued: “The art of chairing a committee, especially this one, is to get agreement to the positive things the council is trying to do in the area of recycling.

“We have a good record but unless we keep improving we are setting ourselves up for massive Landfill Tax liabilities and Landfill Allowance Scheme fines. The worst case scenario is in the area of £5 million annually.

“Thus getting the public to buy-in to initiatives is vital. Sometimes to achieve that it is necessary to jolly people along a little rather than saying you don’t agree with them.

“That is what these minor comments were about,” he said.