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PAY AS YOU THROW?

With the latest announcement from the Government on paying for the rubbish you throw out, Carol Bevitt considers the difficulties such a scheme may bring to householders, and what the future could be for rubbish collection.

Controversy is guaranteed with the Government’s latest green initiative- paying for what you throw away. It isn’t a new idea; it was mentioned in the Lyons Report last year.  How it is implemented, and when will be up to individual councils, many of whom suffered at the recent local government elections, when two weekly rubbish collections became an electoral issue.

Many residents willingly recycle; some were doing so before doorstep collections began. But now it is compulsory with bi-weekly collection schemes becoming the norm for many households throughout the country.

Rightly you would say you already pay for rubbish collection in your Council Tax, so why pay a second time?
If that proportion of your Council Tax was reduced would you be more inclined to agree?
(Personally for me, that would depend on how much I was going to be charged, and if certain guarantees could be made.)

There is no uniform policy on what councils recycle, what is collected by one authority may not be collected by another. So how big a financial problem you have with rubbish is going to be taken out of your control.

If there are not the facilities for dealing with a particular material, then elsewhere in the country there may be, but this relies on the individual authorities being able to form a mutually beneficial agreement; Unfortunately this still leaves a lot of potentially recyclable items uncollected, and ending up in landfill.

Then there is the problem of contamination. This can be household rubbish items put in the wrong bin (accidentally or deliberately), or recyclable material contaminated by food residue- which can’t be washed off as with tin cans and plastic bottles. Contaminated loads apparently end up in landfill which costs the local authority money. But surely if recyclable rubbish were sorted centrally, a lot of the load could be retrieved?

An additional hindrance is that not all properties are suitable for storing rubbish for two weeks. Terraces for example, with bins left on the street all week– who wants to wheel their bin through the house, or take a possibly long walk, with a heavy bin, to reach the rear entrance to their property, only to have to reverse the process the following week?

Flats often share rubbish facilities. If you are going to charge, how will you decide who has dumped what weight of rubbish? If the total is divided amongst a group of residents, then there is certain to be resentment if they have to supplement a heavy rubbish producer, or one who fails to recycle.

Another problem for some householders is other people putting their rubbish in someone else’s bin. If charging is introduced, the victim will be penalised for that ‘extra’ rubbish. Certainly not fair. So the Government has talked of lockable bins, but failed to explain how this will work.

For local authorities this could be expensive. If they haven’t yet adopted a bi-weekly collection system, then they can introduce new adapted bins; if wheelie bins are already being widely used, then there is a cost implication in either converting existing bins, or replacing them entirely. Who will fund that? The Council Tax payer most likely.

Fly tipping is already an issue. Householders find themselves turned away from their local recycling sites because they wish to dispose of items that centres will not except; they are told to take it to other locations which charges for disposal- is it surprising that fly tipping is increasing?

Many local authorities, who offer collection of bulky items from the doorstep, have begun to charge- what incentive is there to dispose of items responsibly?

There is always the possibility that householders will decide to burn excess rubbish which adds to pollution; and those householders could be breaking local laws by doing so.

It’s just one question after the other.

Yes, we all know that we can’t ignore the issue, but there is something that can be done. It does require the Government to make changes, and of course they won’t be achieved over-night.

(a) Reduce junk mail deliveries.

(b) Reduce unnecessary packaging, and where it is used ensure it is made of recyclable materials.

(c) Local Authorities to collect all recyclable material from rubbish collections.

(d) Efficient management of material collected.

(e) Glass collection: Different coloured bottles are separated at collection points, but when containers are emptied they frequently get mixed together, (and the clear glass which could be used for new bottles and jars) when crushed is only suitable for road aggregate or landfill.

(f) Dry Recyclables- paper, cardboard, tins and plastic: Many mixed loads end up at places like Aylesford Newsprint that recycles only newspaper. Much of the material sent to them is unusable, it is contaminated with food, tins and plastic; their only option is to crush it and send it to their landfill pit- about 9,000 tons a year of material that could have been recycled.

Just by sorting out these issues, our recycling rates could be drastically improved. The knock-on effect would be the reduction in waste going to landfill, and cost reductions in charges made to local councils, and EU fines levied on the UK.