stealth tax?

bbc
The Institute for Public Policy Research said a "pay as you throw" system was the only way to improve the UK's poor recycling record.

The UK recycled or composted only 18% of waste in 2003-04, IPPR figures show.

Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday reports 500,000 bins in England have been given "bugs" to record homes' waste habits.

The newspaper says the devices carry a unique serial number which can be scanned when the bin is tipped into a refuse lorry and that some lorries carry weighing equipment.

It has raised suspicions some local authorities are planning to charge residents for the weight of rubbish collected, the paper says.

more taxes i guess they really like to milk people dry
i mean dont we pay enough taxes already?

Meanwhile, the Mail on Sunday reports 500,000 bins in England have been given "bugs" to record homes' waste habits.

I'm not sure about the validity of that statement, but I'm sure it's going to get a few eyebrows raised on here. As if they don't have enough fun tracking our habits as it is.

Frankly, a "pay as you throw system" seems like a rubbish idea. They can't stop people with too much spare cash thinking they need a new fridge or dishwasher every other year, they can't stop the "new young rich" from wanting top of the range, brand new equipment in every abode they occupy, and they can't stop "travelling communities" from leaving mounds of unrecycled mess in their path everywhere they go. They face more than an uphill battle trying to stop the amount of "waste" we produce without even considering the amount of packaged goods we consume every day.

Will forcing even more money out of peoples pockets, many of which simply cannot afford to pay any more, do anything to help? I sincerely doubt it.

The best thing they could do, IMO, is to educate people about recycling without coming over as pretentious. Impossible? Probably. If you ask me, amongst other things, the "Fridge Mountains" make a mockery of any attempt to clean up our "recycling habits".

Cleaning up after yourself isn't anything to do with 'stealth' or tax particularly; it is simply a recognition of reality, it may well be an unpleasant reality for some but nevertheless reality is what it is and it isn't going to go away.

'We' have never truly factored in the costs of cleaning up the resultant refuse left after we have used/finished with certain products.

Our standard practise pf simply dumping our (sometimes toxic) waste as if that were the end of the matter is simply no longer acceptable - and in any case it is often just not true that that is the end of the matter.
You can only dump and try to forget about the inevitable consequences for a finite period ('till those consequences start to come up and bite you).

It is perfectly normal and surely wholly acceptable that people pay to clear up the mess they leave behind them.

For instance, when you buy tyres for your car it should also be a factor in the price for a proper, sustainable and clean disposal of them, until very recently it hasn't been......not very long ago it wasn't unusual to see huge piles of car tyres being burned off and enormous amounts of toxic gases released and areas ground being poisoned.

Ditto car breakers many of whom whined that their 'freedom' was being reduced (by that big bad and terrible EU, naturally) when they were required to have a concrete/non porous floor to stop oils and motor chemicals seeping into the ground they stacked car upon.

The ''fridge mountain'?
This was actually the consequence of local authorities and UK central governments spending years avoiding the inevitable
(despite they themselves being involved in framing the laws that made action inevitable).

Pollution respects no national borders/boundaries (which is an excellent reason for having the EU, right there).
Therefore the EU set EU-wide targets (which the UK voted on) which later became EU-wide limits (which the UK also voted upon) and which finally became EU-wide law with financial penalties for those who fail to meet those legal limits (which was again something the UK voted on).

Then when it all shakes down and simply dumping your crap is outlawed the 'I should be able to do anything I bloody well like' types cry their eyes out that their 'freedom' to make our country their own restriction-free dumping ground has been removed.

Sorry bit I have no sympathy for this moaning.

(.......and as for this weighing claim?
I'd be very reluctant to just accept at face value anything the Mail says about anything local authorities/central government are doing)

I don't think any kind of tax will affect recycling habits. People in general (not myself) just aren't interested. They won't get interested if you take more money from them, they'll just get more bitter than they already are.

And then there's those who could afford to carry on throwing away as much rubbish as they like. Do you think it would make any difference to the well off if they have to pay an extra £50 pound a month, or whatever it would amount to? Again, I doubt it. You'd have the Daily Mail bemoaning Balir's "harsh treatment of the middle classes" and that would be the end of it.

They've left it far too long, if they really wanted to reverse our recycling ways I think they would have to be more draocnian in their actions, and nobody likes that. The root of the problem needs to be addressed somehow, our reliance on packaged goods and our willingness to keep buying the latest gadgetry, furniture, appliances etc. is the real problem. A "consumer society" of our scale is always going to be a recycling nightmare, and unless people care enough to change the structure of our society in that respect, efforts to make us more "eco friendly" are just fruitless endeavours, IMO.

Well all I can go by is the evidence of my own eyes here chebob.

Where I live we now have 3 bins (one for kitchen waste/compost type material; another for tins, plastic bottles, paper and card-boards and lastly a more general bin).
We householders have been repeatedly told that if we don't separate our refuse properly and use these bins properly we can expect higher rates bills (we don't have quite the same property tax as the rest of the UK, yet).
We also have several municipal tips where our larger refuse can be taken and again separated properly.
All my neighbours like myself now use the bins and the tip properly and religiously.

It would appear that the threat of hitting people in the pocket is one of the few ways to shift the complacent and uncaring attitudes on this.
It hasn't made everybody a 'green enthusiast' and some even resent the (very small) inconvenience but they all accept it has to be done (and none of them are so uncaring that they want to see property taxes rise through their own negligence).

As for the wealthy?
Well that is where factoring in proper disposal costs and any energy inefficiency should come in.
By all means be 'free' to run your absurd 4 tonne 4 wheel drive - usually alone - to the shops and back but expect to be clobbered in fuel duty and road taxes and disposal taxes on things like new tyres etc etc.

People like the Mail can only do the 'aren't we everybody'? routine on that kind of stuff so far; as they continue to stretch credulity further and further (and the 'we' be revealed as so obviously a 'they' really) that that kind of appeal ends up losing whatever strength it had and looking ridiculous.

.....of course the flip side is that done right recycling and energy efficiency should result in the long term in lower costs/bills for us all.

But IMO ultimately this is merely a case of opportunistic digs at Labour and the EU from idiots like the Mail and a rather pointless arguing about numbers of angels on pin-heads; whatever stance one wants to take politically the days of consequence-free doing whatever you like are over.
All the serious and major UK political parties agree on this now.

The pressure for greater ecological awareness and energy efficiencies are only going to grow and grow (and even where certain countries that imagine they can side-step this they are going to find it affects trade as other countries begin to refuse imports and set law and regulations for more environmentally friendly products.......as can be seen in the electronics industry where US and Japanese firms have had to alter the substances used in their manufacturing processes if they wish to continue to trade here).

One may even attempt to waste time on these more practical matters by diverting the debate to arguing the toss over whether or not one 'believes' in global warming etc etc but much more fundamentally and far closer to home right now is the fact that no-one wants to live in a poisoned toilet......or leave said toilet for their kids.

Like I said around my way it is happening and the people are accepting it as necessary (whether we have done enough soon enough does remain to be seen.....but that will be down to a lack of preparation by our elected representitives - and being Northern Ireland they'd far rather wail about religion and national preferences than get down to the actual hard work of sorting out the practicalities of how we all live, never mind what flag or faith people prefer......which I suppose is ultimately down to a public that keeps voting for those clowns).


[edit on 27-8-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

they have obviously been planning this for a while, on teletext it stated that they had fitted 500,000 microchips to wheelybins to record peoples rubiish collection details and to top it all of no doubt they won't reduce the rediculously high council tax levels once this tax is imposed even though the council tax is already suposed to cover the cost of waste disposal

I can't argue with your view sminkey, and what you say is correct. But in my "corner of the country", people just don't care. We have one seperate box for recycling papers and the like, and even that is too much effort for most. The older people seem to be more enthusiastic about it, which surprises me, but the "working age" families just see it as one more thing they haven't got time to do. Sad but true.

The problem is they don't give you the resources to recycle material, if i want to recycle stuff I have to separate it all into separate bags put it in the car then drive to the recycle/dumping center. not everyone has the time to do that.

As for making you pay for the rubbish the bin men take away it has to be the most idiotic idea ever, it wont make people recycle more then they already are but it will make more people litter, I can imagine it now every week people will take the time out to dump there rubbish in the river or in a corner somewhere to avoid paying yet more money to the government which is only given to there own wages.

In Belfast we've had this for a while now. Our council is wanting to help recycling, so they gave us another 2 bins. A blue- for paper, plastic atc, and a brown for gardens waste. They put chips on these new bins to measue the amount you recycle, and I've heard that if you recycle enough you can reclaim money. Its not all that bad!