Posted on 12/02/2006 5:11:23 PM PST by jdm
THOUSANDS of householders are facing the prospect of paying Britain’s first domestic rubbish tax under an Environment Agency proposal to trial the system in councils across England and Wales, writes Jonathan Leake.
The scheme would see householders charged according to the weight of all non-recyclable waste they put out for collection each week. Green waste — recyclable paper, metal and glass, for example — would still be taken away for free.
The agency’s “pay as you throw” proposal is aimed at breaking a deadlock between government departments that has held up attempts to “green” Britain’s waste disposal system.
Tomorrow, the agency will meet senior civil servants at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) who are drafting a new national waste strategy.
So far the draft policy has been hampered by disagreements between ministers, with Defra lined up against the Treasury and the Department for Communities and Local Government.
Defra has long supported the idea of “variable charges”, as they are known, but the departments of Gordon Brown and Ruth Kelly fear such charges would have an unfair impact on people with low incomes and so have resisted them.
The Environment Agency is also cautious. It supports the principle of variable charges but fears they could cause a surge in fly-tipping.
Its proposal is that a few local authorities introduce different systems of charging for waste collection with the results monitored for social and environmental impacts.
Liz Parkes, head of waste regulation at the agency, said systems that worked well in middle-class areas might fail in, for example, urban areas dominated by tower blocks. A system of trials would highlight such problems.
WTF?!
:O)
Look for many "unofficial" dump sites to spring up....
well, IIRC rubbish bags were already subject to council tax at their purchase, so implementing some weight scheme might not be too onerous in Airfield One.
No way will that ever work.
Expect a lot of basements to fill up too.
I think that a form of this was in place in Germany back in the nineties. Actually it's quite a personal choice concept. The more you put in the recycling bins, the less you pay (extra since your taxes are already paying for the recycled stuff) for your own trash collection. It seems better than having it be against the law with fines at the ready if you don't recycle....such as is the case in some places already.
BINGO!
Why not fill the recycling bins with busted up, broken down OTHER SMALLER recycling bins? Would you still get to pay less? :)
Civilization and Public Health took leaps forward when cities learned to get their waste as far away as possible.
Here's to the decline of European Civilization
alas poor England, I knew thee well...
(appologies to Will S.)
England is finished if this continues.
That's what was meant by the term "fly-tipping". Tipping on the fly is garbage dumping while out and about.
....a bit out of context. My comment was assuming the same amount of trash. You could walk recyclables to nearby recycling bins for which you did not have to pay a fee or just have it picked up at home for a container-based fee. It was your choice. No one ever knew how much, if anything, you put into the recycling bins. I did not live there. I was told about it while living in a very blue county with fines for not recycling.
Wouldn't this just encourage one to deposit their rubbish in the Moslem neighbors bin?
Regards.
You buy trash bags from the town that are blue with the town name on the bag. They cost a dollar a bag.
When you go to the dump you can put all the recyclables in bins but the food garbage goes in the bags and has to be put into a separate bin.
Usually you use 2-3 bags a week. - tom
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