" The setup here may be different from in the States. We have the District Councils which are very local, and which are responsible for picking up our domestic waste, and the County Councils which have a Waste Authority which is responsible for disposing of it. The government also wants waste strategies to be regional, so for us that means that rubbish from the whole of the North-West can end up in our landfills. Historically that has happened, with the city areas of Manchester and Liverpool dumping all their waste in our old quarries, of which we have many because we are an old mining and quarrying area.
Our particular County Council is part-owner of a waste disposal company called Lancashire Waste Services (LWS). They are like WMI except smaller, and only operating in Lancashire, and they only do landfill. So guess what waste option we get here? You've got it--landfill and more landfill. So the Council gets a kickback from any holes in the ground operated by LWS. So when we told them we didn't like the idea of UK Waste doing a megatip near us, they jumped on the anti-UK Waste bandwagon cos they want LWS to have it!! They didn't admit that of course; just slagged off UK Waste while maintaining that landfills were quite OK. But I think our Councillors got onto your website or something similar and came back with horror stories about WMI!
People in the UK can be a bit naive about who owns and runs things. In general, in the past, as long as someone turns up to take away their waste they have not questioned who owns that company. Brits have not yet realised that waste is a resource rather than a nuisance to be got rid of, so they don't have much objection to a foreign bunch of people dealing with it. But I think awareness of corporate shenanigans is rising and things will change soon.
I don't think any of our Councillors realised that UK Waste was part-owned by WMI till we pointed it out. Then they got pissed off but though they told the public that WMI were a bad lot, really they were just wanting LWS to have the hole in the ground instead.
I am annoyed that waste has been privatised here because if it were still in public ownership I think we would be more likely to have the long-term cost-effective options of waste minimisation and recycling. All big waste companies care about is maximising waste and their profits.
Re approaching Councils, the thing to do is to find out how the system works and who is really in power. This may not be the person it appears to be. You find these things out by talking to everyone in the County Council or the appropriate body, and also to people in the District Councils and Parish Councils. Sooner or later you will find sympathetic people who want to help and when the same names keep coming up, you make a note of them. Then you go and talk to the folks in power. It's good to start with your local representatives as they should be more sympathetic; it is in their backyard after all and they will have an eye to their local popularity.
Re the County Councils, find out what the relationship is between the appointed planning officers and the elected Councillors. Often it is strained as the planners are largely answerable to industry and the Councillors more to their electorate. It is possible to drive a wedge between them by educating the elected Councillors in alternatives to landfill, incineration or whatever you are fighting.
You may find, as we did, that the local politicos are universally hostile or unhelpful and just want to get rid of you. In this case, the media is your best mate. Every week you send a press release to all the local papers and radio stations and the local TV networks. Keep them up to date with what you are doing. Tell them if you are meeting with apathy or worse from the politicos. the politicos will begin to get very embarrassed. They will start off by trying to marginalise and discredit your organisation. You will be accused of scaremongering, not representing the people, of just being a tiny group of cranks/eco-terrorists/vegans/communists/people who are trying to overthrow the Labour Party/Conservative Party/whoever. The thing to do in this case is to get the local people on your side--advertise a couple of public meetings in a local community centre or church, announce your aims, why you are concerned and the identity of your pressure group and ask people to help. If you do this right, and address real public concerns such as health, smell etc. people will feel involved and turn up. Our area is quite poor and under-privileged but we got several hundred people to our first public meeting and had to turn people away. Once you have a wide variety of local people on your side who will write letters to the papers, turn out for demos and annoy local politicos by writing letters and making phone calls, then you have the politicos on the run. They will realise they cannot mess with you or marginalise you! There is safety, and power, in numbers.
Don't ever give up even if you think the Councillors are not listening/are stupid/are hostile/are in the pocket of industry. We found that the old marketing adage that the average person has to hear something 25 times before it goes into long-term memory is true. So you choose one of your members who is diplomatic and appoint them to go chat to the local Councillors, MP etc once a month, feed them with info and let them know what is happening. We have termed it "drip feeding". It took our MP and local Councillor three years to take on board the fact that landfills caused health problems but now you can't shut them up on the subject.
It is vital to establish a contact person (often a secretary/receptionist whom you should befriend) within both District and County Councils who will tell you when relevant meetings are, when certain decisions are to be taken, what deadlines have been set for public consultations etc. This person will also be able to fax to you a list of the committee members who will vote on certain decisions. By now you should have got together a mailing list from the folks who turned up at the public meetings and people who call you from posters, articles in papers etc. Every time a decision is happening, you do a mailing to your list and ask people to write to the decision makers by name. In your mailing, you need to give the public a few bullet points of topics to cover in their letters.
If there are enough objections to a scheme you will drive the issue to a public inquiry. This will be a chance for you to put all your evidence against the development and the Inquiry Inspector will decide whether the risks outweigh the benefits or vice versa.
Re finances, for a long time we struggled for money but once we started being successful it seemed to breed more success and we had many offers of money. In the eraly days we tried a number of methods to raise cash:
1) general requests in mailings (may bring in a couple of hundred quid if you have 800 people on the list; which is pretty small potatoes considering the mailing will cost £90 with printing)
2) sponsored marches, which are good for media coverage but not brilliant for funds (we made £300 from one but it took much organising and this kind of money does not go far if you are fighting two public inquiries as we were)
3) raffles, which are good money earners but bloody hard work cos you have to sell millions of tickets
4) jumble sales
5) metal detecting days, where the metal detectors come and look for treasure on private land and pay to do so. You need a friendly landowner to donate his field for this and it has to be historically viable. The best methods we found were
a) before we were obviously successful, we organised a flea (antique/bric a brac) market in a venue which has one every month and which is very successful. Every month it is a different charitable/non profit group that organises it and makes money from the stall holders who pay £25 to have a stall for the day. The stallholders get to keep all the money from the sale of their goods. We made £1000 in one day from this! It is very hard work (you cook breakfasts for people all day and this in itself makes a lot of money) but all the work is concentrated in one exhausting day so it is worth it. And you don't even have to mention the name of your group, the people pay for the stalls, not because of who you are! This comes as a relief after years of trying to fire people up about landfill.
b) once we had some successes under our belt, we just came out and asked people who we felt could afford it for large sums. We were careful to tell them exactly what it would be used for and why it was a good investment! Business people and people with money are obviously the best ones to ask; in our group, the poor people give their time to go and ask the rich people for donations! Rich people have no time but they are generally happy to help financially.
It is good to raise money to hire professional environmental consultants to fight public inquiries, write reports and critiques of planning applications etc. They know the law and they know the strengths and weaknesses of particular planning schemes. But great care must be taken in choosing as 99.99% of consultants are on the side of industry and charge a fortune into the bargain! Personal recommendations from grassroots groups you trust are the best route. You might expect to pay $500 for a report and $200 for a one-day appearance at a public inquiry though many of these people will adjust their fee according to what you can afford.
Do lots of local research. If you are fighting a tip, go and interview people who live near a local tip with comparable "control methods" like liners/gas management systems and get the horror stories! Record them or take written notes. Get at least 20 stories. Note the ones who say they don't have a problem with the tip as well so you can work out a percentage of people who did. It will always be enough for your purposes and it adds credibility if you get the "no problems" as well. Write the stories up and present them at strategic points--to the local media, to local docs, at public inquiries. Get people's names but keep them confidential and do not present them to your target audiences--you just need to have them on record in case you are ever accused of inventing the stories.
Identify the strengths of members of your group--there will be good talkers, good writers, good scientists, good practical people, schmoozers, rottweilers etc--and use them appropriately.
For demos, get some placards made with suitable slogans, get your mob together, tell all the press, invite local politicians, business people, children and everybody you can think of, and just do it! It's good if you can think of something witty and imaginative. We are not a witty or imaginative group and generally just do the gas mask and protective suit and banner thing but it seems to be good enough to get some media interest."