Extra trash? Extra charge!
April 10th, 2007
Why is it that Europe is so often far ahead of us in green thinking? They’ve banned formaldehyde soaked wood composites (as has China), while we’re still using them to build our houses (and just about everything else). They’ve opened up private lands to public use. (This latter idea sends even so-called “lefties” in a fit… when I proposed something similar to Oregon, a well-known lefty said that I was just looking to “legalize trespassing”.)
Well, here’s another outstanding European practice that I would love to see imported:
Councils in England could soon be allowed to charge residents for the amount of rubbish they throw away.
Charges for extra trash? What’s the benefit? Well…
He went with a team of officials last year to see how this part of Belgium recycles more than 70% of its household waste.
So how do they do that?
[...] [T]hey pay variable charges based on the weight and volume of waste they leave for collection.
Variable waste charging is an outstanding idea. It’s probably even better than the Japanese model (where recycling rates are just as high) of continual brow-beating and peer pressure by neighbors (at least in the smaller villages). Or that of Brazil (where destitute people rummage through great heaps of trash).
The benefit is not just more recycling, but less overall consumption:
One family I met said the payment-by-weight system had changed their behaviour.
They now tend to buy food with less packaging, like fresh fruit and vegetables.
And because they are also charged for food and garden waste - though at a lower rate than other rubbish - they avoid using the green bin at all through a mixture of composting and using chickens, which gobble up much of their left-over food.
If a stalwart GOPer like Supreme Court Justice Kennedy can admit to learning from European legalese, why can’t we learn from their trash habits?
Since our trash collection is privatized, unlike Europe, it may be a bit more complex to implement such a scheme here. One would imagine, though, that the variable charge would exponentially grow. For each additional pound of garbage that you produce, you are charged significantly more than the first pound of garbage ($i = $i + ($i/2)).
Meanwhile, also on the Beeb, the Galapagos islands are dying.
Related posts: View from Harney County, Disgorging, Deforestation turning point?
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