Pay as you throw

[baldowrie]

don't forget to demand a ransom!

[the.fee.fairy]

what an excellent plan! We could make them all members of some kind of covert gang and get someone to hack some goverment trackng list r something...or maybe i should go to sleep!

[ina]

Or a few people that spoke Polish, Italian, Hindi etc so that everyone could learn what to do.

Isn't that a bit, erm, racist? Don't forget that it's the British who are at the bottom end of any recycling league... It's quite funny for me to follow this discussion - we had it all in Germany about 20 years ago.

And I believe Stonehead said earlier on it wouldn't be fair because the rich would continue to throw out a lot. Surveys in England have shown that the recylcing rate is much higher in upper-middle clss areas than in areas with lower incomes. It is a matter of education, there's no doubt of that, and education still often goes with a higher income.

[den_the_cat]

I think financial and convenience incentives, not penalties, are the way to go, I'm not that old and when I was a kid we still used to get money back on beer bottles (I think it was beer, it was something dad drank but I wasn't allowed), and we always collected them - eve though recycling was an alian word 30 years ago.

We also had milk in glass bottles (convenience) and collected milk bottle tops for charity at school. No one had to threaten things to make us do that, it was something we thought was the 'best' thing to do.

Frankly to me while it would be great if everyone wanted to recycle for the right reasons its faster and therefore better to get them started for any reasons - if people with less education find the concept of recycling difficult or irrelevant to their lifestyles then lets give them a reason to do it - increase the council tax for everyone and then give people who do certain things money off - or pay schools who collect recycling instead of them having to pay for it to be taken - if five year olds take a carrier bag of recycling into school a couple of times a week that'll get them started and pester power is a wonderful thing.

The councils also have to start practising what they preach - I would be willing to pay a bit more to have the bins in the town seperated so that waste could be recycled, to have all recyclable things recycled (how about all of those yoghurt pots which are made of recyclable plastics? Does anyone know anywhere that you can actually put those? Its always "bottles only - no cartons or pots"). It doesn't help teach people how to recycle if the messages they get are mixed. If it doesn't matter that the council bins are seperated why should people care at home? If you always]/i] seperate waste you do it without thinking about it, if you don't you end up not doing it.....

[Stonehead]

And I believe Stonehead said earlier on it wouldn't be fair because the rich would continue to throw out a lot. Surveys in England have shown that the recylcing rate is much higher in upper-middle clss areas than in areas with lower incomes. It is a matter of education, there's no doubt of that, and education still often goes with a higher income.

The class thing is quite interesting. Yes, the middle class tend to recycle more but they also consume more. Also, as wealth rises above a certain point, people in general actually start to recycle less - perhaps morality and principle start to go out the window once you start seeking more money...

Quite a few studies have found that things like congestion charges, road charging, higher fuel taxes, etc actually benefit the affluent and wealthy. They can continue to do what they've been doing (albeit at a higher cost) while also enjoying the benefits of the less affluent being squeezed out.

In other words, making it more expensive to use the roads forces poor people off the road so the affluent have less congestion to deal with. It happens in other areas as well, but this is the main one I remember.

Oh, and dentistry. The affluent go private, get the treatment they want, at a time convenient to them and don't have to queue. The poor have to queue, fit their time around the dentist's appointment and don't always get the approprirate treatment at the right time.

However, I suspect rubbish and recycling might rebound on the affluent as the poor will simply fly-tip more - or dump their stuff in rich people's bins!

As Ina says, education plays a large part in this but so too does involvement. People have to feel that they have a real say and real role to play, otherwise they'll bridle at impositions being made on them by their "betters".

[ina]

You are perfectly right. At the moment, too many people see it as "the council's job" to get rid of their rubbish. It has to be made clear that the council does not benefit financially from our recycling, i.e. there should be a definite cut in council tax ( ), and then they could start charging folk who refuse to recycle. That way people would, or should, get the feeling it really is up to them to save money (and the environment - but lots of people aren't sure about that, anyway).

Radio 4 has a lot on recycling at the moment - just now at lunchtime I was listening to somebody going on about how it won't make a blind difference if we all recycle like mad anyway... Most callers, however, are quite positive towards it, they only complain about the inconsistencies between the different councils.

[baldowrie]

Stonehead

Oh, and dentistry. The affluent go private,

Sometimes the poor are forced to go private too, like me. However there are some very good and cheap insurance covers for dental treament now...but shouldn't be the need for it if the NHS dentist were paid properly etc.