Controversial pay-as-you-throw schemes could be an acceptable answer to Britain's 15 million tonne mountain of household waste according to a BBC survey. From January 2009, councils in England will be able to bid for pilot schemes which offer incentives to people for recycling more and deter them from throwing things away. Previous pay-as-you-throw pilots were abandoned, but the survey showed that 79% of women and 70% of men said they should be rewarded financially if they create less waste and recycle more. A much narrower majority - 55% of women and 50% of men - said it was only fair they should pay more if they throw away more.
The poll of 1,000 people offers some support to the Government, which is encouraging councillors to try pay-as-you-go pilots. Europe is running out of landfill sites and all nations face targets to increase the amount they recycle into new materials. Just over 70% of both women and men said they would be more careful about creating waste if they had to pay for it to be collected. However, councils could be alarmed by another finding - that 46% of men and 41% of women said they did not trust their local authority to administer any new waste charges fairly.
Ministers are hoping to attract English local authorities to bid for the pay-as-you-throw schemes permitted in the recently published Climate Change Act 2008. However, previous pilot charging schemes have been hugely controversial, with a computerised chip-and-bin system in South Norfolk being abandoned after repeated technical failures and delays to bin rounds.
Environment Minister Jane Kennedy responded to the survey, saying, "It is encouraging that such a high proportion of people recognise the responsibility we all share to dispose of our waste in a way that reduces our impact on the environment. It is for local authorities to decide on the solutions that work best in their areas and we have provided them with all of the measures that they requested in order to do so."
There are currently no plans for pay-as-you-throw schemes in Scotland or Northern Ireland, but variable charging is being considered in Wales.
