Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council (MTCBC) is my litmus test for all my FoI requests. It's my home Council so why not ask them everything before I release it to a wider audience. Some of them provide me with a deeper insight into my council. They make you think what people are up to and the information that other council may have. Other’s are just me testing the waters of what I can and cannot get. They all give me a deeper insight into the inner workings of the council and what they could be doing. So why am I writing a blog about this?
Well one of the ones that I was looking to do a full scale investigation on was our local recycling scheme here in Merthyr. The people of Merthyr have moaned many time over the months (isn't alliteration fun!) about the scheme that we have had. It basically is very draconian and can mean that you have huge amount of recycling that gets left behind. So it has been a rather big bone of contention.
So, me being me, I asked Merthyr the following:
1. What is the limit that the government sets for waste going to landfill
2. How much waste did MTCBC send to landfill in the five years preceding the change recycling system
3. How much does a council get fined for going over their limit for sending waste to landfill
4. How much did MTCBC get fined in the five years preceding the change of household waste to the new recycling system
5. How much has it been charged since the change of recycling system
6. How many reported incidents have been made of fly tipping since 2006 (on a year by year basis please)
This was going to be one of the big project that I have in order to show the comparison of how the council's work, and how their recycling schemes work as a comparison. Section 16 of the act kicked in (See previous blogs about this one), and the reply came back “Check http://www.wastedataflow.org/ & Natural Resources Wales (NTW)” (Paraphrased).
So a quick trip to Natural Resource Wales showed me the FoI section. My fingers itched with all the requests that I was going to ask.. I could feel the beginning of hunt for a new FoI Victim... It also showed the publication scheme. What the heck, let’s have a little look. Now I found this page. Is showed how much landfill and all of the information that I had requested from MTCBC AND ALL the comparison data since 2004…
The hunt was at an end… My FoI prey had escaped… The hunt was over… It got me thinking, however. The amount of data that is out there is truly STAGGERING. Just as a comparison of how much data is out there, have a little look at this one. Did you know that the DVLA did this? A little bit of research can save someone a lot of headache…
As an aside, I will publish what I can from the data that NRW showed, it will just take me a moment, or two...
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