How silly is this? #1

Well done Brighton and Hove Council #1, originally uploaded by seadipper.

A committee of MPs has criticised councils for their lack of enthusiasm about a pilot scheme to charge people for the amount of rubbish they put out for the dustmen.

Rubbish is left all over the place all the time even when it is taken away free, so what will things be like if people have to pay according to the amount of rubbish they produce?

Most rubbish is packaging. The cost of disposal should be incorporated in the price so that you pay for rubbish when you buy it. This would create a fund for it to be collected with no questions asked. Since the cost of disposal would thereby be reflected in the price, it would create incentives all-round, to be economical with packaging and to recycle and re-use containers.

Other rubbish such as metals and electronic scrap is potentially a source of valuable commodity elements, which the big mining companies are happy to dig away half a mountain to obtain.

Re-use is better than recycling. Glass containers could make many trips instead of just one. Items such as electronic goods and components could be kept in service much longer than they actually are - I recently bought a laptop computer for £150, only four years old and £1200 when new. It will do for several more years, which makes one wonder why the original corporate owner did not have the same idea.

Organic waste such as food is another matter. Composting is the best solution but difficult for people who live in flats.

Part of the solution is to get people to sort their rubbish into metals, paper, electronic scrap and batteries, and compostable food/garden waste.

If there are incentives not to produce waste, then there will be less of it. But charging to take rubbish away. No - it will just get dumped. One can only wonder if MPs live on the same planet as ordinary people if they can come up with such an idea.