Readers' letters: Bin workers deserve a bigger pay rise

As a citizen of Edinburgh and an ex-Community Councillor I would like to know what council leader Cammy Day’s plans are to deal with the forthcoming bin strike.

When he took up his post he pledged to ensure the basic services of CEC were delivered. Surely refuse collection is the most basic.

I fully support the bin men in seeking higher wages - what they have been offered is derisory when inflation is at 9 per cent and rising. They perform an invaluable service and did so throughout the pandemic.

If this strike goes ahead, in a very short space of time we will have overflowing bins in hot conditions in the middle of the festival, with bags ripped open by seagulls and the possibility of a rat infestation in the city - in short a public health emergency.

Reports in the press state that the majority of SNP representatives on Cosla voted to offer five per cent, however Labour and Conservatives opposed this.

This would probably have resolved the crisis; for example, the police have recently accepted a five per cent offer.

While local authorities blame the Scottish Government and vice-versa it is us, the council tax paying public, who will suffer the very depressing consequences of this strike.

I would suggest that he re-examines his budget and comes up with a more worthwhile offer in order to avoid the catastrophic consequences if this strike goes ahead.

James Park, Edinburgh.

Police need more car charging points

Some time ago I heard that police in California were moving back to using fossil-fuelled cars because their electric vehicles were sometimes running out of power during a police chase.

I now read that our own Scottish Police Force have purchased considerable numbers of electric police cars but that insufficient charging points have been arranged to charge them up.

There is such a shortage of chargers apparently, that I hear that some cars are being powered up by cables slung out of police station windows!While I don't know how many charging points our police force is currently short of, I do know that we are to be short of 850 police officers by the end of this year, because that figure has been announced by the same Scottish Police Authority who organised the purchase of those electric police cars !

Archibald Lawrie, Kingskettle.

Is factory farming making us sick?

It has been more than 20 years since our TV screens were filled with the sight of animal carcasses burning on pyres, in a desperate effort to combat the spread of foot and mouth disease. Six million farmed animals were killed as a result.

In the 1990s, the outbreak of BSE resulted in 4.4m cows being killed. Those scenes seem a distant memory, but it is important to ask if anything has changed.

The current outbreak of avian flu in the UK has resulted in the deaths of thousands of wild birds and the ‘active culling’ of 2.75m farmed birds. It is caused by a deadly new form of the H5N1 strain, which originated in poultry farming.

It is thought that three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases come from animals, and this highlights a disturbing pattern which needs to be addressed in order to alleviate further suffering and disease.

For further information, readers may wish to download Animal Aid’s free report ‘Is Factory Farming Making Us Sick?’ from our website, as well as information on adopting an animal-free diet. www.animalaid.org.uk

Fiona Pereira, Tonbridge.

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