Date published: 2007/05/24
The BBC says:
People who fail to recycle household rubbish could have to pay more than those who do, under plans to cut waste.
Environment Secretary David Miliband wants English councils to be able to bring in charges - and to give cash "rewards" for those who recycle.
The Waste Strategy gives examples which suggest "green" homes could get £30 a year back from their council, while non-recyclers pay an extra £30.
It also suggests a clampdown on direct mail and free plastic shopping bags.
Unveiling the first waste strategy for England since 2000, Mr Miliband said the country was still "lagging far behind much of Europe" on waste, despite increased recycling.
He told MPs the government would set higher recycling targets for businesses and local councils.
Mr Miliband said councils who wanted to introduce variable charges for rubbish would have to provide adequate kerbside recycling facilities.
Councils would also not be able to use the charges to raise extra funds, and would have to take into account size of households, whether people had young children or whether they were on council tax benefit.
It would be up to councils to decide if they want to operate such a system and what system they want to use.
Examples in a consultation document published alongside the Waste Strategy include the "Flanders" wheelie bin-weighing system and the "Maastricht" system where special sacks have to be bought for non-recycled rubbish.
Oh wow, they are going to clamp down on free plastic shopping bags. That will reduce Britain's landfill and emissions by 0.0001%. It's good to know that the British ruling elite manage to tackle the tough problems of the day.
And why should charges "take into account size of households, whether people had young children or whether they were on council tax benefit"? If two people live in one household should they get a discount for handing over exactly the same amount of waste as two households with one person each in them? Well, if you want to account for the labour cost of picking up the waste, then perhaps yes, but this is becoming ridiculous. And similarly for households with children, are parents somehow saintly people so as to be deserving of (yet another) tax break? Waste is waste is waste. It's simple, really.
The government should also charge for "recyclable" waste, since that also has a real and an environmental cost. Unfortunately the British ruling elite believe that recycling is some kind of holy exercise, and as long as you do it, it does not matter how much waste you produce. This is a classic example of the externalisation of cost.
As mentioned in the article, there are two obvious systems for charging. You can base it on weight or on volume. The former makes more sense. The problem with the latter is that it will just encourage people (certainly middle class people) to buy garbage compactors to reduce the cost of the waste. And just imagine how much electricity that will consume. Another great victory for the environment. (The cost of electricity currently does not properly take into account carbon emissions. The cost of landfill is being taxed at a rate way over what would take into account carbon emissions. So the cost of electricity used will be less than what is saved on waste, but the carbon emissions may well increase.)
_________________________________________________________
All material not included from other sources is copyright cambridge2000.com.
For further information or questions email: info [at] cambridge2000 [dot] com
(replace "[at]" with "@" and "[dot]" with ".").