Brighton & Hove Labour have today joined Friends of the Earth in congratulating Tory Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles on winning their Talking Rubbish Award.

Online voters opted overwhelmingly for the heavyweight Tory Minister for his “hyped-up claims that people are terrified of the ‘bin police.” Friends of the Earth claimed the Tory-led Government was “talking trash whilst failing to set out a sensible plan for dealing with England’s waste”.

A further two Tory ministers, Bob Neil and Caroline Spelman (who attempted to sell-off great swathes of England’s forests) made it to runner-up and third place in the Friends of the Earth Talking Rubbish Awards.

Both Brighton & Hove Labour and Friends of the Earth want to promote recycling and help both people and businesses to cut down on unnecessary rubbish. Labour Candidates are promising to reduce the level of food waste in the city, currently representing a third of all domestic waste, with schemes such as food composting.

Brighton & Hove Labour Leader, Councillor Gill Mitchell, said:

“The Tory-led Government said they would be the ‘greenest Government ever’, but within a year we’ve seen them talking down recycling, we’ve seen WWF walk out of the Zero Carbon Taskforce and now Friends of the Earth have presented them with an award for talking rubbish.

“Tory Minister Eric Pickles in particular has been at war with councils when he should be supporting them to cut the amount of waste we needlessly throw away.

“The local Tory Council aren’t much better, they have allowed recycling rates to fall and this just isn’t good enough. Brighton & Hove Labour believe it is important as ever to reduce waste and promote recycling.”