Liverpool heads to the UN’s climate summit. Back home, litter keeps piling up
Plus: the legacy of sound systems in Liverpool and the People’s Day of Death
Dear readers — a wintery welcome to your Monday briefing, as the first snow of the season is set to grace the region this week. Or, as Reach PLC would have you believe, a snownado is about to run the country ragged…
Over the weekend, Laurence met up with professional grave tidier Tony Maher, who — since his wife’s passing twelve years ago — has been tending to graves across Merseyside. If you haven’t yet read their interview, which one reader described as “a wonderful inspirational story” and another called a “marvellous read”, follow the link below:
Editor’s note: We’ve had a great fortnight of growth in November, with dozens of new members joining us. A warm welcome to those of you new to The Post family, and a big thanks to those of you that have stuck by us. We’d love to hit our target of 75 new paid subscribers this month, so if you’re not one already, why not hit that button below? It costs just £7 a month, gives you full access to our back catalogue of stories, and helps us fund future investigations and culture pieces across Merseyside.
The big story: Can the city ever get out from under all this litter?
Top line: With Joe Biden, Olaf Scholz, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, and Justin Trudeau all electing to stay home, the UN’s COP29 summit on climate change may be short on high-profile world leaders. What it does have is Liam Robinson. The Liverpool City Council leader will be speaking this week about the local authority's innovations to try and reduce the city’s carbon footprint. Meanwhile, back home, the city’s environmental track record – specifically on recycling – continues to disappoint.
Context: In February, a report by the government’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) said Liverpool had the second-worst recycling rate in the entire country, ahead of only the London borough of Tower Hamlets. Only 17.9% of the city’s household waste is recycled; to put this in perspective, aside from Tower Hamlets, every other region at least cracked the 20% mark, with some authorities — Stratford-on-Avon, South Oxfordshire, and Three Rivers district councils — managing over 60%. If those comparisons are too apples-and-oranges, Stockport, another northern town on the Mersey, wasn’t far behind at 59.3%.
This is a familiar story for regular Post readers. In August last year, Abi’s article about the Penny Lane Wombles, a litter picking group in the L18 area, and Litter Clear Volunteer, a collective that works to beautify areas of the city, covered the laudable work these people do. But the fact their existence is necessary at all is an indictment of a city bedevilled by detritus.
“They were having a festival of litter when I arrived,” begins American travel writer Bill Bryson’s chapter on Liverpool in Notes from a Small Island. “Citizens had taken time off from their busy activities to add crisp packets, empty cigarette boxes and carrier-bags to the otherwise bland and neglected landscape.”
Granted, Bryson wrote that in 1995. In Abi’s story, she notes even less welcome additions to this city-wide gala of garbage: bottled urine, soiled nappies, discarded knickers, drug-dealer calling cards, and a regular mountain of dog poo bags behind the aquatics centre in Wavertree.
Liverpool Community Independents leader Alan Gibbons told the BBC’s Claire Hamilton this week that there are daily reports of people dumping rubbish in alleys, while the council’s cabinet member for neighbourhoods Laura Robertson-Collins added "about a third of the waste in our purple bins should be able to be composted and not going to incinerators".
Last August, Robertson-Collins told us: “If you look at the areas that are the worst, it's not linked to economic deprivation”, citing transient residents without a permanent stake in their local area as a cause. Little Clear Volunteer’s Vicky Osayande said: “It’s all about civic pride”.
But is the council doing enough? In September, an Everton resident posted images on X of an enormous rubbish tip in her neighbour’s garden, saying: “I have been contacting @lpoolcouncil since June over my neighbours [sic] garden, over 5ft high, now in the street & there are people turning up fly tipping in his garden. The rats are feral!” In a subsequent post, she claimed the council “will not reply to my emails and calls.”
The council’s recalcitrance in dealing with these stockpiles of waste is concerning. Gibbons told the BBC that penalties for fly-tipping have historically not been properly enforced.
But to be fair to both residents and the council, Gibbons also highlights the number of properties that are carved up into flats – DEFRA cites population density (how built-up an area is) and the proportion of flats as obstacles to properly storing and collecting waste for recycling. In 2022, Robin Brown wrote a piece for The Post about how the explosions of HMOs had affected areas like Picton or the Dales off Smithdown Road, not least in the preponderance of litter and the rats it attracts. As Robertson-Collins notes, Liverpool’s large number of terraced streets – where bins are stored in communal alleys – may also present an issue.
Bottom line: It may be that the architecture of the city and its division by landlords are just as much a part of the litter problem as a lack of civic pride or council leadership. Whatever the causes, Robertson-Collins maintains that it’s “everyone’s responsibility” to contribute to raising Liverpool’s DEFRA ranking: “There is too much waste and we've really got to get a grip of it".
A council report may back her up: "If the current blue recycling bin was used correctly, the city’s recycling rate could improve to 30%” — a small alteration which alone would put Liverpool above equivalent authorities in Birmingham, Luton, Nottingham, and Middlesbrough. Liam Robinson has said that improving those recycling rates is a "really important part in our road to net zero", and that the “huge range of projects” currently being proposed are “important for the future of the city and the planet”. In the meantime, Liverpool’s record on waste management looks set to continue to be a source of civic disgrace.
Your Post briefing
The family of a grandfather from Merseyside are seeking answers after he fell from a bridge despite being placed inside a police van for his own safety. 66-year-old James Callery was found standing outside a set of railings on a bridge on the East Lancashire road back in October, with police called to the scene by passers-by concerned for his welfare. Once they arrived, Merseyside Police placed him in the back of their van; however, Callery was able to escape the vehicle and subsequently fell to his death. Now, the force are conducting an investigation into the incident, with a lawyer representing Callery’s family saying they are “desperate for answers”.
A Wirral man convicted of beating his fiancé to death nearly 40 years ago has had his case referred back to the Court of Appeal after new DNA evidence surfaced. Pete Sullivan, known as the “beast of Birkenhead” in news reports, was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Diane Sindall in an alleyway in Birkenhead in 1986. Sullivan initially provided an alibi for the night of the murder to the police, however later confessed to the crime — though he stated he had no memory of this and was drunk at the time. He pled not guilty at his trial, but bite marks found on Sindall’s body led to him being convicted for her murder. Now, after doubts were raised over the veracity of the bite marks used to convict him, the case has been referred to the Court of Appeal. According to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, DNA evidence obtained from the bite marks does not match Sullivan.
And Liverpool UFC star Darren Hill is set to take on celebrity boxer Tommy Fury next year in a fight at Manchester’s Co-op Live Arena. Hill, who made a name for himself as a mixed martial arts fighter, has traded in his hand wraps for boxing gloves in recent months, entering his first boxing match earlier this year. Now, he’s set to fight Tommy Fury, brother of famous boxer Tyson Fury, in his first professional boxing match on January 18th.
Post Picks
🎵Head to Toxteth Library on Saturday to celebrate the impact and legacy of sound system culture in Liverpool, with an evening of discussion, DJs and dancing. Featuring music from the original Strugglers' Sound System. Find out more here.
🎨On Tuesday, Make in Huyton is hosting a watercolour Christmas card workshop. All materials are provided — just bring yourself and a fun idea to recreate. Find out more here.
👻For those of you not yet over Halloween, the Old Police Station on Lark Lane will be home to yet another ghost hunt on Friday. This time, you’ll be examining the cell of Liverpool murderer Florence Maybrick. We published a deep dive on the curious case of Maybrick last year — read that here.
💀Or why not celebrate the People’s Day of Death this Saturday? Proceedings start with The Skool of Death at The Adelphi Hotel, followed by the procession to Pier Head, the Krossing of the Mersey to Future Yard in Birkenhead, and then the Bricklaying Ceremony.
Home of the week
This three bedroom house in Kensington may be a bit of a fixer upper, but visitors for your housewarming celebrations won’t struggle to track you down with its unmissable red exterior. It’s on the market for just £140,000, and has a small outdoor space that could be transformed into a lovely garden with a little TLC.
Recommended reads
Some shameless self promotion from us. This time last year, writer Ophira Gottlieb published a fantastic piece on the People’s Day of Death. It’s well worth a revisit before this weekend. Take a look here.
A recommendation for those of you that read our Big Help Project series. This piece from our sister publication, The Tribune, looks at a housing start-up company called Roost Rent that has left people living in awful conditions. “People gave up secure housing to live here, we are quite content to see their business collapse,” one source told The Tribune. Read that piece here.
Reason[s] for Liverpool's poor recycling record . . .
In October 2000 I submitted a detailed plan to Liverpool City Council which was aimed at removing one single TOXIC [literally] item from our general rubbish. The scheme was based on a highly successful scheme I had experienced over a lengthy period while living in Scandinavia.
Single-use dry-cell batteries contain a variety of poisonous chemicals. These batteries CAN be collected as a separate item, dismantled, and (partially) reused: the non-recyclable elements can be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly fashion.
When I [eventually!] managed to SPEAK to someone, the reaction was:
"Sounds like a good idea. How are YOU going to fund it?"
Me? A private individual, with no significant capital / access to unlimited wealth/government funding?
Yes, I concede that since that time I've seen occasional (tatty) cardboard boxes on the shelves near the exits of SOME supermarkets (though far from ALL of them). I've even asked what the various supermarkets DO with the collected batteries, but nobody seems to actually KNOW (or care, sadly ......)
My scheme would have:
1) Created Local jobs (collecting batteries from shops)
2) Link to Cargo transport via Docks. Regular sailings from USA refuel in Liveerpool. They continue to SWEDEN, where battery recycling facilities have operated for many years
3) In the longer term, these batteries would generate financial 'returns' - the Swedish authorities would pay for the batteries.
4) Every battery in several countries throughout Europe has a (nominal) "deposit" included in the retail price. This is how the Public are encouraged to take the batteries back to a shop when they buy replacements.
My proposals never got off the ground, nor were they even taken seriously.
THIS is the true answer to your question regarding WHY Liverpool has such a poor recycling record.
In a single word: APATHY
Sincerely,
Paul McDermott Woolton 07954 411613
Is Liam flying out there, is the jet using used cooking oil, will it smell like a chippy?
Maybe he should be zooming there, one things for sure he won't be in kensington and fairfield his ward