Recycling and the like.
Blairite think tank the IPPR wants to bring in penal rates for people who don't recycle, not that it expresses it thus. Full press release here, but herewith some extracts:
"The UK is at the bottom of Europe’s recycling heap along with Greece and Portugal, according to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) and Green Alliance...The report will recommend that local authorities are given powers to charge a ‘pay-as-you-throw’ fee for collecting un-recyclable rubbish. The report, to be published ahead of the Local Government White Paper and the new Waste Strategy, will argue that ‘pay as you throw’ is the best way to meet current recycling targets and move towards a target of zero waste. (my emphasis)...."The UK is bottom of the heap in Europe when it comes to recycling. The Government should give local authorities powers to charge for collecting non-recyclable waste. Our European neighbours have shown that where charges are common place, recycling rates will rise...."There are few better routes to higher recycling than through giving householders financial incentives. They are a proven, positive and logical way of changing our throwaway society."
There are a number of things that jump out from this, the idiocy of aiming for zero waste being just one of them. I will accept the idea that paper, glass, cans etc all lend themselves to being recycled, but what of organic waste? Ponder briefly on attempting to do things with organic waste - Is there to be a network of urban pigsties to deal with that, or are we urban types supposed to have compulsory composting facilities in our living rooms? Apart from the immediate questions of practicality, what this really represents is far more the desire of the gauleiter class to compel the people to behave in a certain way rather than any serious interest in the environment. Feel free to compose your own recruitment advert for bin snoopers - to be advertised in the Guardian, natch. However, the Great British people being what they are, stand by for a vast outbreak of fly tipping, filing up other people's bins in the dead of night etc etc. It *will* happen, I promise. As noted before, if one does not drive and one does not have children, the bin service is by far the most visible council service, and for this to be turned into a force for social engineering / tax farming is yet another slap in the face.
Blairite think tank the IPPR wants to bring in penal rates for people who don't recycle, not that it expresses it thus. Full press release here, but herewith some extracts:
"The UK is at the bottom of Europe’s recycling heap along with Greece and Portugal, according to a new report from the Institute for Public Policy Research (ippr) and Green Alliance...The report will recommend that local authorities are given powers to charge a ‘pay-as-you-throw’ fee for collecting un-recyclable rubbish. The report, to be published ahead of the Local Government White Paper and the new Waste Strategy, will argue that ‘pay as you throw’ is the best way to meet current recycling targets and move towards a target of zero waste. (my emphasis)...."The UK is bottom of the heap in Europe when it comes to recycling. The Government should give local authorities powers to charge for collecting non-recyclable waste. Our European neighbours have shown that where charges are common place, recycling rates will rise...."There are few better routes to higher recycling than through giving householders financial incentives. They are a proven, positive and logical way of changing our throwaway society."
There are a number of things that jump out from this, the idiocy of aiming for zero waste being just one of them. I will accept the idea that paper, glass, cans etc all lend themselves to being recycled, but what of organic waste? Ponder briefly on attempting to do things with organic waste - Is there to be a network of urban pigsties to deal with that, or are we urban types supposed to have compulsory composting facilities in our living rooms? Apart from the immediate questions of practicality, what this really represents is far more the desire of the gauleiter class to compel the people to behave in a certain way rather than any serious interest in the environment. Feel free to compose your own recruitment advert for bin snoopers - to be advertised in the Guardian, natch. However, the Great British people being what they are, stand by for a vast outbreak of fly tipping, filing up other people's bins in the dead of night etc etc. It *will* happen, I promise. As noted before, if one does not drive and one does not have children, the bin service is by far the most visible council service, and for this to be turned into a force for social engineering / tax farming is yet another slap in the face.
Labels: Greenery, Odd press releases
This entry was posted
on Sunday, August 27, 2006 at 3:09 pm.
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The proposals are ridiculous, but the govt have to start people recycling somehow.
Islington already ask residents to put food waste eg. leftovers in recycling bins and Barnet are on the way to making recycling compulsary in London as there is little landfil space left for London waste.
Oh for heavens' sakes, recycling is the green fascists way of controlling normal people. I don't know why you allow yourselves to be controlled like this ... other people imposing their fascist rules on you. Who voted for this? Recycling's a waste of time. It's the packaging that's the problem.
I tend to view the whole recycling movement as gaining impetus from a gauleiter class that just loves having the 'environment' as a figleaf to cover its desire to push us around.
Meanwhile, still no recycling facilities anywhere near Croydonian's bunker.....
This government has never made recycling a priority, it's not a sexy subject and has never been considered a vote winner. Do you remember fridge mountains? The govt didn't tell local authorities what this involved and they were not prepared to deal with the new EU directives. The same has happened with the WEEE directive regarding electrical and electronic items. Let's hope Tories can see the importance of these issues and raise the agenda with realistic policies that will engage with the public, which is the only way they will be successfully implemented.
What none of the 'constitutional' parties will admit is that this is all down the EU. See:
http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=31999L0031&model=guichett
on the
Council Directive 1999/31/EC of 26 April 1999 on the landfill of waste
and
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/topics/landfill-dir/
for the UK Government'w way of implementing the directive.
With increasing numbers of local authorities now employing spies to catch and prosecute people who fail to comply, how long before outraged residents hang one from the nearest lamppost? It can't come soon enough for me.
Verity, all the parties nationally and locally have a green agenda, all coucils have recycling targets. Western Europe has been doing this for years before EU intervention.
The UK, as ever, are rather desperately trying to play catch up with the regulations that they knew were coming sooner or later because we dont already have the facilities in place to confirm.
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