Charging for rubbish collections, right or wrong?

[Kathyan]

Seeing as I already pay Council Tax for the removing of my rubbish, I think this is a bad idea. Until ALL re-cyclables are collected by All councils then it just won't work. Why should I pay extra for re-cyclables that the council won't re-cycle to be taken away?

[jake-the-peg]

If you stop thinking about it from your own perspective and take a wider view it may help.

We're running out of land fill, there are mountains of rubbish piling up - we simply cannot keep trying to dump rubbish in the ground.

So the coucils have targets for recycling and if they don't meet them they'll be fined ( which of course means everyone will)

So they need the means to make people recycle if they won't do it. If people keep throwing stuff out and not recycling councils need the power to force them to.

As for councils not recycling as I say above the government will fine them if they don't hit their targets.

Things have to change

[Reverandfunk]

What about targeting the makers of products who over package?

[kwicky]

England has become the dustbin of the planet. Where ever you go rubbish is strewn everywhere. You don't see the same mess in Scotland or Wales. Why? Could it be some many petty restrictions are enforced to stop householders or businesses from disposing of it. You would think that having regular collections from your front door could solve the problem but this government are making it almost impossible to dispose of anything. Adding an extra cost will hardly solve the problem.

[buildersmate]

It's all about appropriate carrots and sticks. Good recycling policies are often a combination of both. We are trying to change human behaviour and mass opinion here.

[BIG DAD]

'stop thinking about it from your own perspective and take a wider view '
Why should i? as far as i can see i'm going to be paying more for a service that is already poor, like Kathyan said it needs to be standerdised all ove the country not left to individual councils to decide what they do, for me its just more money i cannot afford to pay out.

[Kathyan]

Jake, I think you are missing my point. What I am trying to say is that councils should be made to recycle everything that can be recycled. Why should I, or anybody else, be made to pay for rubbish to be taken away when the council could recycle it? If the councils are not meeting targets for recycling then the government should step in and make sure that they do, but not by charging us for the councils mismanagement!

[Gromit]

You are already charged for rubbish collections, you always have been. The only difference is now you will be charged for the amount of rubbish you thrown away. This is a much fairer system Gas, electric, water, phone are all charged by the amount you use. With rubbish, it is very unfair that an old couple living on their own should be charged the same as a family of eight.

As you will be charged for the volume of rubbish you discard, it makes sense to reduce that amount. If you recycle stuff, that reduces your bill.

But you still do have a choice. Don't bother to recycle if you can afford higher charges.

[daffy654]

I would happily pay to have my rubbish removed if they take the amount I am already charged for this service off of my yearly council tax bill. I do not want to be paying twice for the same service.

[Loosehead]

"Right or Wrong" - mm both! I think it's right in one way as it will encourage people to use the recycling systems that their council provides, for example my own council has a "BIG" bin for recyclable stuff and a "small" bin for general waste. The truble is there are people who do not indulge in the good intentions of the council and end up contaminating recyclable stuff, increasing landfill.

Wrong in that it will turn the country into one big tip as all and sundry start fly tipping and generally dumping rubbish anywhere they can get away with it to avoid charges.

[jno]

Gromit, why should you have to produce less rubbish (or pay a higher charge) just because you're in a family of eight rather than living alone? The charges will be (I presume) per household, perhaps even per house; shouldn't they be per head?

[Gromit]

Jno,

The pilot schemes can either give you a �50 discount or make a �50 charge per household. A fairer way would be to give an allowance per person living at the address, but that information might be difficult to verify and guard against fraud.

I would prefer a scheme where your bins are barcoded and with a discount registered when recycling bins are emptied.

[LoftyLottie]

Kathyan, I 100% agree with you. I do my best to recycle, but the local council will only recycle certain things and I can only use my recycling bin for a small percentage of what can actually be recycled if the council had the machinery available to deal with it. eg If one small yoghurt pot is put in the bin, then I am likely to get a sticker with 'contaminated' stuck on my bin and it will not be emptied. If I go to the local tip with a vast quantity of recyclable materials, then I will be directed to put a great amount of it into 'household waste - non recyclable', thus making the whole exercise a total waste of time. I now end up spending time and money (petrol to get to the tip) for no good reason.

Until all councils are set up correctly and uniformly with with the ability to recycle properly, then why on earth should we pay anything above our council tax.

This makes me so angry.

[Emu2005]

I completely agree with you Kathyan - I am completely for recycling and don't agree with weekly rubbish collections, but why should people who try to recycle all that they can be penalised because their local council won't recycle everything?

I live in a block of flats and there are no recycling bins, just lots of rubbish ones. Everyone dumps their stuff in there, how would they make a system like this work for blocks of flats? Would I be penalised because other people in the building throw out loads of rubbish? I take everything I can to the local supermarket to recycle, but I can't recycle cardboard and plastic bottles there so what am I to do? - is it fair I should have to pay more to recycle this?

I know someone who was a recycling advisor, and the things people put in their bins which could be recycled was shocking, and then they moaned they didn't have enough room in their bins. But the point here is that it is not fair to charge households for disposing of rubbish which they can't recycle, yet in another city people can and so don't get charged.

I reckon it's just a nasty rumour though and doubt a system like this would be introduced, the councils and government are too useless to make it work.

[what..the?]

Bringing in the pay to dump system will just lead to increased fly tipping.

[jno]

our council is good at recycling but the actual system is a bit chaotic. There are three flats in our house, two wheelie bins, two green bins for garden rubbish and a crate for bottles and paper. We use both the green bins because we're in the garden flat. Everybody shares the two wheelie bins, so I don't know how they'd apportion charges among us. One flat has 3 people, one has 2, one has 1, so it's hard to see how that could be done fairly. We all share the crate, which is quite small and mostly full of my newspapers but with room for her upstairs's wine bottles. If they want to arrange all this on a per-household basis, they're going to have to do some major rethinking - which is a shame because at the moment we don't produce a lot of rubbish (though I don't know how I personally meet EU requirements) and everyone's happy.

[Gromit]

what..the?

Not if you get a discount instead of a charge. Everyone pays the same on their council tax, but discounts are available if you recycle.

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think I am missing your point.

Government already has a stick to make councils recycle - they have targets to meet and penalties if they don't.

If your council isn't recycling I'd suggest you beat them up about it. Which council is it anyway?

Meanwhile the councils don't have similar sanctions to aim at people who won't recycle.

You can't expect all the other councils to do nothing whilst yours drags their feet

How would you suggest they get people to recycle? - I think "please and thank you" doesn't seem to hack it.

Doing nothing just isn't an option

[China Doll]

Great.

I hope they catch up in this borough who haven't even introduced wheelie bins yet!

I live with three other people. One of them has gone away for four months but her and I used to do all the recycling in the house which meant us standing around the green bottle thing at our local tescos once every six months looking like we had a chronic drinking problem.

However the other two people in my house are a bit haphazard and lazy about it despite encouragement and in some cases a verbal from me... If we had to pay I know they'd think twice about what they chuck.

Makes sense.

[LoftyLottie]

Jake, our council actually admits to not having enough finance available to afford the machinery necessary to recycle lots of recylable things. I think you are living in cloud cuckoo land if you think that most councils are doing well at recycling at present. I am totally prepared to do my bit to save the earth, but when my efforts are totally disregarded and I am told by the contractors who run the council tip to put recyclable things in with domestic waste then I wonder why I bother.

[gina32]

but just how is it going to work if you have to pay for what is dumped? my bin gets collected very early in the morning and who's to say that my neighbour wont decide to put her rubbish in my bin before they come to collect it and then she gets a rebate and i pay more??