Plans To Charge For Household Rubbish

[Kymba]

I have be following this with interest for a few weeks now and wonder what others think.
A plan to bill every household in England for the amount of rubbish they leave out for the dustman is being discussed to help meet an EU directive to reduce drastically the 1,400 landfill sites in the UK over the next eight years.

At the moment there are 3 options they are looking at :

1) The most likely system would be a specific charge for each sack of rubbish - possibly allowing each household one or two free sacks a week - and levying a charge of up to £1 on each extra sack. This would provide an incentive for people to recycle or compost more of their kitchen waste.

2) Would be a flat charge on every household - for example, £5 a month - that filled up more than two sacks a week. Councils would be encouraged to come up with their own variations.

3)A third possibility is to introduce the weighing of wheelie bins in dustcarts resulting in charges for excess weight paid by the householder. Similar schemes have been piloted in Europe
They are also considering whether charging should be introduced at household waste tips - except where people are dumping rubbish for recycling - to reduce landfill use.

I personally think this will lead to more fly tipping and cause a bigger problem for the enviroment and its Wildlife.

Anyone else got any views on this??

[Tinkerbell]

I totally agree with you Kymba. And, with regard to charging for the removal of rubbish - there is already a charge made by councils for this service, it's called Council Tax!

Tinkerbell

[smartie]

I also agree that the most likely consequence of this would not be increased recycling but increased fly tipping. Or dumping of rubbish in neighbours' bins, which we have already seen some of here, where the council won't take any extra bags that are not in the wheelie bin. Some of my neighbours have been seen putting extra bags in my bin, which is never full. I don't make an issue of it now, but I would move into full bin rage mode if I were being charged.

[Paul mabbott]

We've been through this before - at great length! The idea is to have a differential toll so that those who create a lot of waste have to pay for it and may consider ways to reduce their waste. On the other hand, those of us who don't create much waste will save on our bills. Seems a good idea to me although I still have doubts about how it will work ...

[Kymba]

We dont have Wheelie Bins here we are allowed to put 5 Black sacks out a week for household waste (they will take more though if in good mood) and we have a SMALL Blue Box for recycling which is so small you can fill it in 2 days if you recycle everything you should. This is emptied ONCE a Fortnight!!! So to me this is one problem they need to readdress!! These Boxes need to be emptied Weekly to encourage people to use them more effectively... I know from talking to my neighbours that they dont recycle as much as they should because they dont want it hanging around for two weeks so it is easier to put it in with the Household waste!!

[Hawkwind]

Originally Posted by Kymba

I have be following this with interest for a few weeks now and wonder what others think.
A plan to bill every household in England for the amount of rubbish they leave out for the dustman is being discussed to help meet an EU directive to reduce drastically the 1,400 landfill sites in the UK over the next eight years.

At the moment there are 3 options they are looking at :

1) The most likely system would be a specific charge for each sack of rubbish - possibly allowing each household one or two free sacks a week - and levying a charge of up to £1 on each extra sack. This would provide an incentive for people to recycle or compost more of their kitchen waste.

2) Would be a flat charge on every household - for example, £5 a month - that filled up more than two sacks a week. Councils would be encouraged to come up with their own variations.

3)A third possibility is to introduce the weighing of wheelie bins in dustcarts resulting in charges for excess weight paid by the householder. Similar schemes have been piloted in Europe
They are also considering whether charging should be introduced at household waste tips - except where people are dumping rubbish for recycling - to reduce landfill use.

I personally think this will lead to more fly tipping and cause a bigger problem for the enviroment and its Wildlife.

Anyone else got any views on this??

Yes I agree with you, this new form of taxation by our local councils would lead to fly-tipping and people will be burning their domestic waste in their gardens which will lead to more carbon emmissions. Dumping of rubbish in the countryside will increase and it will cost our councils ( and the council tax payer ) more to clean up.

[smartie]

Originally Posted by Paul mabbott

We've been through this before - at great length! The idea is to have a differential toll so that those who create a lot of waste have to pay for it and may consider ways to reduce their waste. On the other hand, those of us who don't create much waste will save on our bills. Seems a good idea to me although I still have doubts about how it will work ...

We know what the idea is, Paul, and I wouldn't disagree that it is a reasonable idea in principle, but it is precisely as you say - the worries are about how it could possibly be made to work. I don't think it can. None of the proposals that have been put forward so far seem to me to be viable. And, in general, previous experience in other areas is that you don't change people's behaviour much by differential taxation (which this effectively would be). I think Kymba is right, that people's behaviour is more likely to be positively changed by more energetic attempts by local authorities to make recycling more convenient. My own LA has just sent a leaflet round asking for our opinions on charging and on what would make us more likely to recycle, so I hope that may lead to some improvements.

[lewisa]

Bin has lock -

Bin doesnt have lock -


Thats about the long and short of it for me.

[Oscar2006]

An interesting thread and I'd like to put my fifty pence worth in.
In my area (Pork pie town) we have 4 different collection bins:
1 large black bin for non-recyclable waste which holds about 5-6 large dustbin liners.
1 large brown bin (same size as above) for garden waste/greens/compostibles.
These are emptied every other week in rotation. (black week 1, brown week 2)
Also:
1 grey bin about 24" x 18" x 14" for recycling cans/glass/plastic bottles etc.
1 green bin (same size as above) for paper/textile recycling.
These are emptied every week.

I have a family of 5 + dog and never have a problem with a lack of room in a bin except at Xmas, but then they do extra pickups.
This has worked very well for about 3 years now, but more could be done to reduce landfill and also stuff going down the sewers (oils and fats for example which could be collected, separated and reused (bio diesel))

I'm happy to be involved with recycling everything practical, but would be completely against being charged extra for my Black bin disposal, as I feel I already pay for this service!

One of the pieces of environmental legislation puts some responsibility for packaging on producers/suppliers, and they already pay a levy (tax) on this, as they know it will almost certainly end up in landfill!
Other legislation makes producers/suppliers responsible for collection of items at the end of their life, many parts from them can be reused. (Cars, PC's etc.) Much more could be done here I feel.

We are all responsible for the waste that we generate and only by making our thoughts known to producers and suppliers can we expect significant changes to be made.
Can we go back to buying food packaged in waxy paper rather than plastic/cling film please?

[jennyb]

We lived for a number of years in the Netherlands. There we had 2 small dustbins (in the days before wheely bins were invented). If you wanted extra bins you had to pay for them which I think is quite fair.

HOWEVER, changing to this system in the UK now would be very fair but, I'm sure, create more fly-tipping. I was amused by Smartie's neighbours putting things in her bins - we get several recycling baskets for glass, cans, papers and textiles, but I am always embarrassed by the number of wine bottles in ours and have actually thought of distributing them along the street BTW, red wine is apparently good for you.

Until about 2 months ago, I did not realise that our council recycled plastic and cardboard since they do not allow you to put these out in the recycling baskets. When I found out that they do recycle these items and have a collection point at my local supermarket, I have been religiously recycling them and have reduced the contents of our wheely bin by half. Why did the council not make it clear to everyone that although they do not collect plastics and cardboard, they will still recycle it if taken to a collection point?

Jenny (hic!)