On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:41:43 +0000, David Hansen
wrote:

On Thu, 4 Feb 2010 10:59:12 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be
wrote this:-

I think the main problem is the bylaws councils can make up on a whim and
then have the legal right to enforce. Fining people for not putting their
rubbish in the correct recycle bins

Not made up by councillors on a whim AFAIK. Instead the Westminster
bunch introduced fines, which some councils have taken up
enthusiastically.

If government was actually interested in waste it would avoid the
over emphasis on recycling, which encourages the attitude that "it
doesn't matter what I buy, as long as I put it in the right
container when I have finished with it." A few years ago Scotland
was putting a Murrayfield stadium of stuff to landfill and if it met
all its recycling targets that was going to grow to two Murrayfields
a year by something like 2030. Madness. Since then the new Scottish
Nationalist government has announced a different plan, but I am not
up to date enough to know whether it is more sensible than the
previous Labour/Liberal Democrat government's plan [1].

What government should be doing is encouraging waste minimisation
and re-use. The residual recycling would be sorted at the kerbside
by council staff

You might be willing to pay the extra council tax but are your
neighbours as willing ?

and put into multi-compartment vehicles. That would
just about eliminate contamination and get better prices for the
materials. For any residual stuff going to landfill, pay per throw.


[1] plan being as generous word to use about it.