By Elizabeth Broughton

Last updated at 14:09, Friday, 27 March 2009

A hospital consultant has sent Carlisle City Council a bill for travelling expenses – because he’s fed up of having to deal with his own recycling.

Under Carlisle City Council’s current recycling provisions, Dr Yoav Tzabar, who lives in Houghton, does not get his plastics and cardboard collected, like most of the rest of the city, during the fortnightly collections.

Since the scheme was introduced two years ago Dr Tzabar has travelled to the recycling point at Asda, Kingstown, with his rubbish. But he’s had enough of using his own petrol for the 3.5-mile round trip, and thinks it’s about time that the council footed the bill.

This week an invoice for £96.46 – covering petrol expenses since February 2007 – landed on the city council’s doorstep.

Dr Tzabar said: “I knew they were distributing green bags two years ago and I didn’t get any. When I asked why they said that they had a plan for sometime in the future.

“I let it go for about a year before I asked again, and their answers just get vaguer and vaguer.”

In the absence of his green bags, Dr Tzabar is faced with two choices. He has been told by the city council he can either take his plastic and cardboard to the recycling point himself, or he can choose not to recycle it and include it in his normal rubbish.

“I’m paying council tax like everybody else,” he said.

“And I know plenty of areas, including a few streets away from me, get their plastics and cardboard collected.

“I was getting fed up and thought I will bill them for my expenses. I don’t get anything for recycling, so I will charge them.”

Dr Tzabar calculated his invoice based on 52 trips over the past two years, the equivalent of fortnightly collections, with a 3.5mile round trip at 53p per mile.

As well as sending his invoice to the city council, Dr Tzabar has sent his letter to his councillors for the Stanwix Rural ward, Marilyn Bowman and James Bainbridge, and Penrith and Border MP David MacLean.

He said: “I may get paid, I may not, it doesn’t really matter. But I want to draw attention to this – either the council is promoting recycling or it is not.

“This halfway house is very hypocritical and the stance is not acceptable. I don’t think I will get paid and it’s not about the money, but I would like to see how they reply.

“At the moment they are promoting environmentally-friendly recycling and doing the opposite. If they tell me to drive to recycle it myself or put it in my normal bin, then either way it isn’t an environmentally-friendly answer.”

The city council made no comment about whether the organisation intended to pay Dr Tzabar’s bill.

A spokesperson said: “Currently our plastic and cardboard recycling scheme collects from 42,000 households throughout the district. Which leaves only 6,000 households without the scheme at the moment.

“With the resources available to us we are unable to extend the scheme any further. However, those residents that are unfortunately not part of the scheme can still recycle their plastic and cardboard by doing so at the banks provided at our Neighbourhood Recycling Centres when practicable.”

First published at 05:21, Friday, 27 March 2009
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk