Date published: 2007/08/22
The BBC says:
Almost two-thirds of people would support a "pay-as-you-throw" system of collecting household waste, a Local Government Association survey suggests.
Its poll of 1,028 people found 64% in favour of lower council tax and charges according to how much rubbish people put out, with recyclers paying less.
The LGA has detailed three possible schemes for England and Wales.
The Conservatives said such schemes would not bring lower council tax bills and fly-tipping would increase.
Shadow Communities Secretary Eric Pickles said the overall burden of taxation would have to rise to cover administration and enforcement costs of waste charges.
"Bin taxes will lead to a huge increase in fly-tipping and backyard burning," he added.
...
The LGA said its survey showed public support for changing the law to allow councils to introduce waste charges.It has set out three possible schemes for England and Wales:
- Householders buy different sized pre-paid rubbish sacks, which it says would be practical in urban areas
- Wheelie bins fitted with microchips allowing rubbish to be weighed as it is dumped into the refuse truck
- Homes choose the size of their wheelie bin and are charged accordingly
The LGA said any scheme would be dependent on local circumstances and would have to be supported by residents.
Well any survey that just happens to support the policies of the organisation that paid for the survey can obviously be disregarded (and a non-scientific survey on the BBC website suggested a big majority against this idea).
Of course the real question is not whether the LGA can come up with survey results which support its position, the real question is whether any of this makes sense. And the Tories, unbelievably, have it just about right.
This will almost certainly not be tax neutral, not only because of the administration and enforcement costs, but also because if the idea actually works, people will throw out less waste, forcing local government to either live with a deficit or to continually jack up the unit cost. (Hmmm, which will they do?)
Of course nobody knows how much extra fly-tipping there will be, or how many people would actually start to try and burn trash (there's not much point to that one since most stuff you could burn you can recycle). But it's bound to get worse. Needless to say, most citizens in most places would follow the rules, it is a minority who would cause problems. And some citizens now clean up the mess left by others in front of their house, and in future that is a lot less likely to happen.
Of the three schemes, the first and third are based on volume, and the second on weight. Morally neither is better or worse (they are both arbitrary). The volume schemes seem to be cheaper to administer. But the big problem with charging by volume is that people will start to buy trash compactors (this already happens in the States), and think how much energy those use. The net "benefit" to the environment would almost certainly be negative if enough people started to use those. But needless to say, this whole proposal is not about the environment, it is about ticking boxes for the EU.
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