Bonallack & Bishop - Wiltshire Solicitors - Press Release

October 2007

Business recycling is too much hard work (Salisbury Journal)

I WAS very pleased to see Salisbury Chamber of Commerce President Ian Hudson choice of campaign to improve commercial recycling facilities.

My Salisbury office is unusual in that it is located in a residential area and the recycling van passes my office every fortnight. About a year or so ago my staff made a number of calls to the council to see whether it was possible for the van to pick up on our office recycling as it passed.

As a solicitor’s office, we don’t industrial quantities of waste but similar types of waste to an average household – we already have arrangements for disposal of our confidential paperwork.

The council’s response was lukewarm so I decided to pursue the matter myself. After explaining our position to the council, I queried that if the council was not yet in a position to change their policy regarding recycling for businesses, could they make a common sense exception for collection of our recycling? I was promised that the matter would be considered and they would get back to me. They didn’t.

I am therefore left with a stark choice, either to wastefully dump everything that could be recycled in with the normal rubbish, which the council do pick up, or to take the office recycling home and add it to my own domestic recycling, which the council do not allow.

I already pay for rubbish disposal through business rates so why can’t Salisbury District Council provide commercial recycling facilities or alternatively allow the domestic recycling van pick up my recycling every fortnight?

Tim Bishop
Bonallack & Bishop, Salisbury Solicitors