I greeted the recent news that Blair et al are considering charging householders for the rubbish they put out for the binmen with some reserve.

On one hand, it seems fair to encourage people to recycle more by charging them for the volume of rubbish (rather than recycling) they produce. We should all be producing less rubbish, because we run the risk of having nowhere left to put it all. Fact.

However, the scheme proposed throws up some questions in my mind:

1. By charging people for household waste, wouldn’t this lead to an increase in fly-tipping? People creeping out of their homes under cover of night, driving to dark lanes and surreptitiously dumping their rubbish by the roadside to avoid paying for its removal? An increase in fly tipping would require additional spending on street-cleaning, so taxes would have to rise. We all lose.
2. Doesn’t my exorbitant council tax already cover waste disposal?
3. What’s to stop me putting my binbag in my neighbour’s bin? What happens with houses divided into flats? Who does the counting? The binmen?
4. Will there be an increase in recycling services? At the moment, it’s pretty much impossible to recycle in inner London, unless you have a car. I purposefully choose not to have a car, because of the negative environmental impact (as well as the cost and sheer ridiculousness of maintaining a vehicle in this city), and the nearest bottle bank is over a mile away. There is no way for me to get bottles there without driving there (using fossil fuel and polluting the environment on the way), and so I can’t recycle as much as I’d like to. Make it easier, more convenient for people to recycle and they will.
5. Can I get a tax break for not having a car, then? That’s a pretty significant environmental decision.
6. Most importantly, why not start charging the companies that create or use the excessive amounts of (non-recycled) packaging for every kind of FMCG product? Or supermarkets who give away plastic bags at the drop of a hat?

On the right is a picture of twelve penguin biscuits I bought from Tesco last week. They come packaged in one outer wrapping (branded) which then contains two inner casings (each holding six items) and each biscuit is then individually wrapped. This packaging (three levels) presumably comes on top of secondary packaging used to carry them to the shelves (cardboard boxes) and larger packaging used to transfer them to the supermarket in the first place (pallets, shrink-wrap, etc).

Overpackaging really pisses me off. The things you buy in the supermarket come sheathed in increasing layers of plastic and cardboard, about 90% of which is completely unnecessary. You buy some mascara and it comes on a plate of cardboard and covered over with a plastic blister. Why? There’s no need!

We all pay for overpackaged goods in the end - both financially (because the producers need to cover the costs of the cardboard and plastic and manufacturing processes) and environmentally (because the packaging is for display only, instantly discarded as soon as the product is used or consumed).

So Mr Blair, don’t charge me to have my rubbish taken away. Charge the company that decides my shopping needs to be presented in excessive (and expensive) packaging, which can only be thrown away, and which causes me to have huge amounts of rubbish in the first place. Charge the supermaket that gives me (or worse, charges me for) plastic bags which accumulate in drawers at home for years without use.

Give me a financial break for choosing to recycle, sure - but also give me a financial break for choosing non- or minimally-packaged goods, for not having a car, and for taking my own bags to the supermarket. Give me a break for making responsible decisions, and help me make them by making it more financially/environmentally/geographically viable to recycle and buy wiser.