Bin charges 'to boost recycling'

BBC
May. 25, 2007

Households who do not recycle rubbish could have to pay more, under government plans to boost recycling.

Environment Secretary David Miliband wants much tougher targets for councils and businesses in England to reduce landfill waste and meet EU objectives.

He is expected to allow councils to vary charges according to the amount of non-recycled rubbish generated.

But the Tories said the proposals were an unfair "stealth tax" and said people would not want their bins "spied" on.

The government says it wants to reward the most green households with tax discounts for the biggest recyclers.

But it is likely to leave local authorities to decide how to set and collect any charges.

Ministers stress that it is not necessary to raise the tax burden to help the environment.

Spy

But critics of the proposal say it could lead to more fly-tipping and harm the local environment.

Opponents also complain they would have to pay twice to have their waste collected, having already paid an average of £140 a year in their council tax bill for refuse collection.

There are also privacy concerns after a freedom of information request by the Conservatives revealed one in seven local authorities have fitted bins with microchips, potentially affecting four million households.

Shadow local government minister Eric Pickles, for the Conservatives, said: "We face the prospect of bin chips quietly being fitted in bins across the country to spy on families without their knowledge.

"I fear now that Labour ministers are forcing town halls into levying new bin taxes, without public consent." Mr Miliband is to set out his proposals to boost recycling later, when he publishes his long-awaited England Waste Strategy.

The environment secretary fears England is falling behind the rest of Europe when it comes to recycling and he wants to drastically cut landfill waste between now and 2020.

Food waste

The EU Landfill Directive requires member states to cut the amount of biodegradable municipal waste being sent to landfill sites. It requires a 25% reduction on 1995 levels by 2010, and a 65% cut by 2020.

About a third of councils now collect rubbish one week and recycling the next in a fortnightly system intended to hit recycling targets and cut waste, but householders have expressed concerns about rubbish left rotting for two weeks.

It has been suggested that Mr Miliband will opt for households using a sealed container for food waste which will be collected for recycling.

Environmentalist group Friends of the Earth also said the government is expected to "strongly encourage local authorities to collect food waste separately every week, so that it can be treated to produce a bio-gas".

Food waste is converted into this gas in digesters, and can then be used to produce heat and electricity.

'Belated attempt'

The Local Government Association (LGA) insisted that councils should not be forced to adopt a waste charging scheme.

Sandy Bruce-Lockhart, LGA chairman, said: "If the government introduces proposals for waste charging it must not insist on a national scheme, but each individual council working with its residents should be able to decide whether to introduce a scheme or not."

Liberal Democrat environment spokesman Chris Huhne said the waste strategy was a "belated attempt" to improve Britain's efforts towards environmental waste.

He called for a "more ambitious" plan, including curbing excess packaging, prosecutions for unnecessary packaging, and boosting reuse schemes for bottles and other containers.

Friends of the Earth said the waste strategy should focus on "a strategy that promotes reuse, recycling and composting of waste and discourages landfill and incineration."