Green thinker is impressive (From Stroud News and Journal)

Green thinker is impressive

THE GOVERNMENT'S top green thinker, Michael Meacher, was in Stroud at the weekend to take part in an environmental conference organised by the local Labour Party.

The conference on sustainable development and waste management attracted some 80 delegates to the Old Town Hall and even hard-liners on environmental issues seemed to be impressed by Mr Meacher's stance.

"You would expect a Government minister to be heckled but there was none at all," said Paul Denney, the Stroud Constituency Labour Party's spokesman on the environment.

"He's far more green than the government and you get the impression he would like to do a lot more if he could get away with it but he is held in check."

Environmentally-friendly policies such as increasing taxes on fossil fuels or asking people to be more responsible recyclers are not often seen as vote winners.

But Mr Meacher repeated Tony Blair's mantra of education, education, education claiming that if the issues were properly explained to people they were usually prepared to pay a few more pence or put up with the minor inconvenience of properly sorting the rubbish.

The minister praised Stroud's forward-thinking kerbside recycling and said the Government was encouraging all local authorities across the country to adopt similar schemes.

Much of the debate focused on plans for energy generation and Mr Meacher made it clear he was not an advocate of nuclear energy but favoured relying on wind power and other renewable energy sources as much as possible.

The possibility of a huge waste incinerator at Sharpness was also high on the agenda but, perhaps surprisingly, the minister was not entirely opposed to incineration.

While he said it was a waste of resources that could be recycled he claimed pollution from the smoke was minimal and modern filters reduced the emissions of harmful dioxins.

Mr Meacher did not leave Stroud empty handed and was presented with a calendar with handy tips to encourage businesses to recycle their waste.

The EcoWorks calendar will initially be sent out to 320 businesses within a mile of central Stroud and there are hopes to expand the project in the future.

For more Stroud stories, see this week's SNJ.