EDUCATING the public about the importance of recycling in West Devon was given top priority last week, after the borough council agreed to appoint a new recycling education officer at a total cost of £27,500. The borough?s environment and community committee agreed the post was necessary, in the authority?s drive to reach targets imposed by central government. David Inman, director of community and services, said there were two ways to tackle recycling education ? to ?go a bit glitzy? in terms of advertising and targeting schools extensively, or to specifically target those people who were not presently recycling their waste. Mr Inman said: ?We need to tease up the number of people who are involved in recycling. Approximately 60-65% do it at the moment, we would like to drive that up to 70-75%, which will push up our recycling statistics. We should be thinking about what we are trying to do as a good council, and one of those things is to get the community involved in efforts which are laudable and have long term objectives.? Mr Inman said recycling had become more and more complicated and the borough?s recycling officer needed back up. He said the new officer would be able to find out who was not recycling, ?face them up in a dark alley? and encourage them to get involved ? although at this stage, he felt fines for non-compliance could not be imposed. Mr Inman assured Cllr David Weekes that the borough was not ?empire-building? and that the salary for the new post would be covered by the existing recycling education budget. But Cllr Ted Sherrell was opposed to the officer?s recommendation. He said he was ?quite astonished? the borough was considering creating a new post after all the cost cutting the council had made over the past few months. ?It?s money that could be used in so many other ways. I think the time will come when we find it difficult to maintain our present staffing levels ? to create another post now would be wrong and almost irresponsible,? said Cllr Sherrell. The committee agreed the new post be created on a 2-year contract. There will also be a three-year programme of workshops established with schools and community groups within the borough.
