IN the debate on household waste Cllr Bridget Wayman says ‘some of the figures reported are misleading’ (Wiltshire Times, December 15, page 28). 
Readers may check the figures themselves on the recycling and open data pages of the council’s website*. Twenty-four per cent is recycled, 20 per cent is composted. The remaining 56 per cent is burned or landfilled.
More efficient waste processing could save money and resources. Our rubbish goes to a plant in Westbury which is not designed for recycling, so valuable materials are burned instead. These include food waste which, if collected separately, could reduce rubbish by 22 per cent and could be processed in existing anaerobic digestion plants to make fertiliser.
Wiltshire Council has granted planning permission for a ‘renewable energy’ plant to be built between the existing Westbury waste plant and Arla Dairies. Fuel made from rubbish would produce gas to generate electricity. This might seem ‘green’ but it’s an expensive white elephant with a government subsidy.
The proposed plant would need long-term feeding with rubbish to make it economically viable. 
This will lock council tax payers into long contracts doing nothing to address the root of the problem which is the vast tonnage of domestic, commercial and industrial waste which we produce in the first place, particularly at Christmas.
Harriet James
Warminster
* See Wiltshire Council End User Register 2016-17 at http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/what-happens-to-recycling Go to the downloads section. Wiltshire Council open data
http://www.wiltshire.gov.uk/paymentssalariesandexpenses/councilpayments.htm#councilpayments2017-2018-Anchor