Hydrangea sp.

I'm sure others have marvelled at the range of colours and shapes presented by the different varieties of Hydrangea.  I was out after breakfast, first visiting Weston Park where the hydrangeas around Town Pool are in full flower.

I then went back to my old workplace for the retirement of another of my ex-colleagues.  It seems again that he will not be replaced.  By my reckoning that is four full time equivalent staff in my old department that have now left from an original establishment of 17 in the last 4 years.  I'm not going to even hazard an estimate of the reduction in staffing since the start of the decade.  Austerity continues to be a factor for local services going forward.

You might find it interesting that after my blip of the wheelie bins yesterday, I had a chat with the lead officer for waste management while I was there.  It was interesting to hear his perspective.  We both agreed that the percentage of waste recycled hasn't change much in the last 10 or so years; that despite the increased public and media interest in this sort of thing.  He says there is hope, with more pressure being brought by government on the producers of packaging to be responsible for the whole life of their products.  However his advice for me was if I knew it couldn't be recycled I should put the plastic waste in the residual waste bin.  At least that is sent to incineration and the energy recovered, rather than it likely ending up on the other side of the world (we don't have enough facilities in the Uk to process plastic waste).  It's a shame that the public's expectation of recycling can't be lived up to by government and industry.