Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish


by Sunny Hundal    
6:55 pm - April 19th 2011

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Secretary of State for Communities Eric Pickles has been voted the winner of Friends of the Earth’s Talking Rubbish Award over his hyped-up claims that people are terrified of the ‘bin police’.

He was presented with his award outside Parliament today.

Online voters opted overwhelmingly for Pickles as the Government Minister talking the most rubbish in the green charity’s contest -set up in response to the Coalition’s record of talking trash whilst failing to set out a sensible plan for dealing with England’s waste.

Friends of the Earth’s waste campaigner Julian Kirby said:

Government Ministers have been keen to trash recycling when in reality it’s more popular and successful than ever.

Eric Pickles in particular has been at war with councils when he should be supporting them to cut the amount we needlessly throw away. David Cameron needs to take control of his hysterical, squabbling Ministers and set a goal to halve the nation’s black bag waste by 2020.

Three Ministers were nominated for the first-ever Talking Rubbish Award for the ‘bin myths’ they have attempted to spread:

* Eric Pickles, Communities Secretary: Recycling means everyone is terrified of the ‘bin police’

* Bob Neill, Under-Secretary for Communities and Local Government: Rotting food is piling up in our homes.

* Caroline Spelman, Environment Secretary: Tyrannical bin taxes are being scrapped by the Government.

The Ministers declined to attend the awards ceremony.

Friends of the Earth is calling on David Cameron to halve the nation’s black-bag waste by boosting recycling and helping people and businesses to cut down on unnecessary rubbish.
From a press release

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. Flowerpower

As PR-generated non-news stories go, this is one of the crudest.

But it does show how out of touch the Left is with popular sentiment. People really are both fed up with and alarmed by the threats councils make to fine them £1000 for making a mistake when sorting or putting out the rubbish.

2. Watchman

Erm, were you not rather alarmed to discover you could be fined for failing to put the right sort of rubbish in the right bin? I’ve recycled for 20 years now, and I still don’t always get it right. I think Mr Pickles identified an issue that struck a chord with people here (please note, Mr Pickles policies were part of a raft that got the largest share of the vote – the similiar-to-Friends-of-the-Earth Greens did not. Might suggest something.

3. paul ilc

FoE are fanatical recyclers, when what is needed are detailed environmental audits of the impact of recycling different materials.

Environmentally, is it really a good idea to wash plastic containers in homes thoughout the UK, collect them in small quantities from each individual household, transport the plastic to (say) Felixstowe and then to ship it in containers to China for recycling? OK, we create another tradeable commodity and we create some jobs, but are we perhaps not using as much oil or oil equivalent in this long process as is saved by recycling the oil-based plastics? And what is the carbon footprint of the whole process?

Similarly, does it really benefit the environment to collect paper from thousands of local sites and carry it in lorries to recycling plants where it must be bleached and processed, when wood-pulp can be sourced from sustainable forests? What is the carbon footprint of the process overall?

I suspect that recycling metals is probably environmentally beneficial because of the energy-intensive nature of mining and processing the ores, and Councils produce compost from foodwaste locally.

There is, by the way, no pressing need to cut landfill anyway. The UK has more than enough capacity to last us until 2100.

4. BenM

Rightwing bin paranoia is, I think, a fitting caricature for the thinking that dominates this end of the political spectrum.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
  1. Liberal Conspiracy

    Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/eeF8Yb

  2. Bryan Lee

    RT @libcon: Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/eeF8Yb

  3. Mustafa Ozbilgin

    RT @libcon: Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/eeF8Yb

  4. Steven Hedley

    There is no justification for govt wanting to marginalise recycling. Seriously, as a species can we grow up? http://t.co/9DL7Dp7 via @libcon

  5. Nikos DT

    Double winner! He won it last year too. RT @libcon Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/eeF8Yb

  6. LewishamAntiCuts

    RT @libcon: Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/eeF8Yb

  7. vince turnbull

    RT @libcon: Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/eeF8Yb

  8. Political Scrapbook

    Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/gkHC2n (from @libcon)

  9. James Iain McKay

    RT @psbook: Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/gkHC2n (from @libcon)

  10. Lara Oyedele

    RT@psbook – Eric Pickles wins award for talking rubbish http://bit.ly/gkHC2n (from @libcon)





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