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#1 Post by **Kwackerz** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:23 pm

Rubbish charge pilots to go ahead

The UK has traditionally 'poured its rubbish into holes in the ground'
English councils are to be allowed to pilot plans to charge households according to rubbish they throw out.
A full roll-out of the pay-as-you-throw charge was dropped last week, apparently after opposition from No 10.

But powers to pilot the charges are in the Climate Change Bill, leading to Tory claims it had been "slipped out".

It comes as MPs warn the UK could face fines of up to £180m a year from the European Commission if it does not cut the amount of waste dumped in landfill.

The Department for the Environment has said the controversial pay-as-you-throw charges could help reduce this.

Here we go... brace yourself...

Gio · #2 Post by **Gio** » Tue Oct 30, 2007 11:07 pm

We've already got a rates cut, we take all our rubbish to the dump ourselves.

Its free then

BTW did you know three quarters of all small businesses take their rubbish to the dumps and avoid commercial rates on refuse

Samray · #3 Post by **Samray** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:10 am

Some people sell their rubbish on fleabay.

D-Rider · #4 Post by **D-Rider** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:06 am

Excellent - a future of more rubbish dumped on the streets and a growth in fly tipping awaits us all!

Another stupid proposal to address the effect rather than the cause - without thinking of the wider consequences of the measures proposed.

The most effective measures would be to tackle the problems at source and dramatically reduce the need to throw away rubbish. Unnecessary packaging being a case in point. Another would be a great reduction in throw away bottles rather than the old systems of reusable bottles with deposits - or those returned to the milkman. These things would be a good start.

back_marker · #5 Post by **back_marker** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 4:56 pm

D-Rider wrote:Excellent - a future of more rubbish dumped on the streets and a growth in fly tipping awaits us all!

Another stupid proposal to address the effect rather than the cause - without thinking of the wider consequences of the measures proposed.

The most effective measures would be to tackle the problems at source and dramatically reduce the need to throw away rubbish. Unnecessary packaging being a case in point. Another would be a great reduction in throw away bottles rather than the old systems of reusable bottles with deposits - or those returned to the milkman. These things would be a good start.

Not sure I agree with all of that.

Yes, you're right about the amount of packaging but the problem with recycling is that most people are just too lazy (most will tell you too busy) to sort their rubbish when they can just throw it all in one bin. The best way to make people take notice is to hit them where it hurts, ie in the pocket.

The fly tipping point has been raised before but most people are too house proud to just leave it festering outside the house but realise that it takes less effort to sort it out into a recycling box than it does to take it somewhere else and dump it. To illustrate this, at my last house just outside Reading you would see maybe a dozen recycling boxes out around the estate but you could put out as many bin bags as you wanted so most people just couldn't be arsed. Now I've moved to Hampshire just this morning there were black boxes evrywhere waiting to be collected because the council have given every house a wheelybin which is emptied once evry two weeks. Considering we are right in the middle of Salisbury Plain and there are no shortage of laybys and tank crossings, I have yet to see any dumped rubbish at the side of the road.

It's still a bit of half hearted attempt when you see the way places like Germany Austria do it, but it's a start.

D-Rider · #6 Post by **D-Rider** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 10:42 pm

Where did you live in Reading? - it's my home town

Gio · #7 Post by **Gio** » Wed Oct 31, 2007 11:18 pm

back_marker wrote:It's still a bit of half hearted attempt when you see the way places like Germany Austria do it, but it's a start.

Without trying to upset your apple cart, I'd like to point out that in Italy (we have a house there) they have bins on each road that you take your rubbish to. They (the council) sort out what can be recycled, rather than leave it to the plebs to make a botch of. The rubbish is collected 4 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) the rates on the average house are about a third of what we are robbed. oh and in case you want to moan about the things they might not do, I'd point out there are police patrols and the local services are better than anything we get.

back_marker · #8 Post by **back_marker** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 7:26 pm

Gio wrote:
back_marker wrote:It's still a bit of half hearted attempt when you see the way places like Germany Austria do it, but it's a start.
Without trying to upset your apple cart, I'd like to point out that in Italy (we have a house there) they have bins on each road that you take your rubbish to. They (the council) sort out what can be recycled, rather than leave it to the plebs to make a botch of. The rubbish is collected 4 times a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday) the rates on the average house are about a third of what we are robbed. oh and in case you want to moan about the things they might not do, I'd point out there are police patrols and the local services are better than anything we get.

Well that just goes to show that other countrys are making such a good job of it, however they go about it unlike us brits.

I wasn't actually in Reading D-R - I lived in Arborfield (on two seperate occasions and going back there for a course next week

)