The Telegraph has a fantastic article about rubbish in Bali today.
I know – not exactly something you are desperately keen to read over breakfast, but necessary: this recycling plant in Bali takes in 140 lorryloads of waste a week, and only properly throws away 10. This is exactly the kind of thing we need to do more of.
I’ve had my questions over parts of the Conservatives’ plans for local government (why mandate weekly bin collection? Or, while a good thing in itself, I don’t really understand how freezing council tax centrally for two years is very localist…) but they are really minor quibbles. What I want to see more of is things like George Osborne’s freeing up of councils to reward people who recycle rather than punish those who don’t – because carrots work better than sticks.
I probably recycle about three bags for every two rubbish bags I throw out. I want to recycle more; my council doesn’t do most plastics, for example, and I would really like them to take food waste separately. I also want supermarkets to reduce their packaging, and I want them to take back their excess without argument – I do feel a bit of a loon unwrapping things at the checkout sometimes. And you should hear the shock when I buy vegetables without a plastic bag…
Even if you don’t subscribe to man-made climate change as a theory, we do all want to reduce the cost of our consumption and maintain a clean environment. Schemes like the one in Bali work because they were local initiatives to solve a problem; it has resulted in jobs and in cleaner surroundings. Of course there are problems translating it directly to the UK. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
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My wife recycles like nothing on earth – woe betide me if I put a box or a can in the rubbish!
I like the Conservative idea of sticks as opposed to carrots – vouchers for recycling above and beyond the call of duty, as opposed to fines for not recycling enough. Difficult to see how it could be monitored without silicon chips in the bins, though, which would be problematic for privacy reasons.
Frugal: hope you mean Conservative idea of carrots not sticks… I think we’ve had quite enough sticks for a few years!
As you say, however, there does need to be a form of oversight. I seem to have become slightly obsessed by bins; I might return to this one.