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Smart Wheelie bins to charge for waste
By Ed Harris, Evening Standard Last updated at 15:03pm on 22.08.07Wheelie bins with microchips which measure how much rubbish they contain could be introduced to make householders cut down on their waste.
Alternatively, under plans outlined by council leaders today, people could be charged according to the size of their bin or of their rubbish bags which they would buy from the local authority.
The Local Government Association denied the plans would be a stealth tax to raise extra cash for councils.
It warned that if householders do not recycle more, taxpayers would bear the brunt of fines of up to £3billion which will be imposed on
councils for missing European targets on reducing the amount of landfill waste.
The association said a survey carried out by Ipsos Mori found 38 per cent of people strongly supported a system in which they would pay a reduced council-tax rate and be charged directly for the amount of rubbish they produced.
The poll of 1,028 British adults found that a further 26 per cent "tend to support" the proposals, which would mean the more they recycled the less they paid.
The LGA said any scheme would have to be supported by residents.
Councillor Paul Bettison, chairman of the LGA's environment board, said: "We must do more to reduce the amount of waste being thrown into landfill. For decades people have been used to throwing their rubbish away without
worrying about the consequences. Those days are over."
The schemes would require government legislation before they could be implemented and could be introduced by 2009 or 2010, the LGA said.
Reader views (12)
What's to stop neighbours from putting garbage in other people's bins? What about blocks of flats (like mine), where the bins are shared by everybody?
The smart wheelie bins idea hasn't been fully thought through.
- Scot Roberts, New Barnet, Herts
Time to fit a waste disposal system to the kitchen sink for all food waste. Then, with the exception of PE and HDPE plastic, my refuse will be recyclable material that the local council cannot deal with.
- Graham, Reading
I think it is time to start refining the art of fly tipping. And also what are the council wasters doing with all my money that they are stealing from me in taxes.
- Stephend, London, England
I'll just start dumping mine in the street if they do this.
- Henry Adams, Manchester, UK
I challenge them to work out which wheelie bin is supposed to be mine, out of the several unmarked ones behind my flat!
- John Evans, London, U.K.
This would be ok if everyone who is charged for their refuse had their council tax bill reduced by a similar amount. As for this 'threat' of massive increases in council tax because of EU fines, that is a complete joke given that council tax has more than doubled since Labour was elected. I have no problem with recycling. I do have a problem with only getting my refuse collected every two weeks.
- Adam, Harrow, UK
Just another excuse to raise tax. This is the single most visible service which a Council supplies. For goodness sake just do the job. If some of the 'suits' who have to keep producing "ideas" were made redundant we could all go back to the service which I have known for sixty years.
All this 'carbon footprint, global warming, environmental hysteria is frankly (pardon the pun) rubbish.
- Michael Murphy, Brightlingsea
Why do we pay taxes? I heard very easy not to pay if you quit your job and get on social benefits
- Pd, London
I believe this is an example of asking a loaded questions with no option given of "Do you want to pay more to get rid of your rubbish"
I also believe that "38 per cent of people strongly supported" would not of responded that way if that choice was given. There are not that many turkeys that vote for Christmas.
As for being fined on the edict of Brussels. They should have been told to get lost.
This makes me so angry and I recycle.
- Derek Grieve, Barnet, Herts
Any reduced Council Tax will certainly vanish within a year. This is merely another bullet in the control war declared by Local Authorities and the Government on the citizens of this country. The so called "forces of law and order" and the Judiciary are also weapons now being used against us.
- James Stuart, Chorley U.K.
I think the council need to sort their own situation out before imposing this on others. For example, our council states that our green bin should be used for "all plastic bottles", what they actually mean is all type 1 LDPE and type 2 HDPE plastic, they have no facilities for type 3, 4 and 5 at all and type 6 has to be taken to the dump which makes an absolute joke of their recycling policy. Ironically they're encouraging people to dump things they have no way of dealing with and in the case of type 1 and type 2 they're saying only if it's a bottle which means that people will throw things which are recyclable away.
The government policy as a whole is a joke, packaging coming with a little recyclable logo on but not stating what category or even which part of the packaging the logo is in reference to, it's an absolute joke of a system that is about as clear as mud.
- Terry Roll, London
Local government can be considered most successful at misdirection and baffling the public when it convinces residents that they need to pay again for services which they already pay for. Besides political correctness enforcement, this is also yet another stealth stupidity tax, similar to the residential parking enforcement schemes that don't actually protect any parking spaces and hospital PFI initiatives that charge rent to the hospitals who own the land and paid for the building. To boil it down, the government wants more money to do less. This may seem like a good idea at the time, but perhaps those who are willing to support these schemes by paying twice for one service (and a rubbish one, at that, pardon the pun) should volunteer to save the rest of us our hard-earned wages while they support the parasitic juggernaut that is the modern council.
- Dan Fearnley, Oxford, UK
