The positive approach is always better than the negative stick
Instead of penalizing those members of the population that, for whatever reason, cannot recycle, and often this is for very good reasons, the governments, central and local, rather should encourage people to recycle by giving incentives to do so, ideally of the financial kind.
The deposit money on glass bottles in years gone by, such as the R Whites Lemonade ones and others, which you got when you brought the bottles back to the store, and this did not even have to be a store you bought the bottle from, was good enough incentive for children to go about town and countryside collecting bottles that had, despite the refund on them, been thrown away, to turn into cash.
Many areas in the United States operate so-called “reverse vending machines” while in other areas the recycling centers pay per aluminium can and per bottle brought into the centers.
As far as bottles go, in the UK and elsewhere, a good choice simply, in order to reduce waste and landfill usage (we must remember that glass basically never ever breaks down nor decomposes), would be to return to glass bottles and those with deposit, including for mineral water, and no longer the plastic one-way bottle. Glass bottles for mineral water also would get people, I am sure, to get their own bottles to take along and use tap water instead of spring water. Many manufacturers of lemonade and mineral water in Germany, for instance, not so long ago, still had the returnable bottles. I don't know whether they still do or not. Time, methinks, that we returned to this and to sanity.
But, we all know that the political will is not there, not in the UK, that is for certain, and we all also know the answer that we would receive from Ministers of the Crown, that is to say, the British government, would anyone even go as far as to suggest su ch ideas to them, namely that while all those things may work well in other countries they could never work in Britain, because Britain is different. Now do not ask me in which way Britain is different – even those government officials who spew forth such stupidity cannot answer you that question.
But, maybe, the Hon. Members and Civil Servants who talk such talk should think back a few decades. I used to make a killing as a kid going around the countryside with my little American Flyer, my little red wagon, collecting the aforementioned R Whites lemonade bottles and others to return to the stores for cash.
However, this is, namely incentives, financial incentives, to recycling, and before that to reusing even, in my opinion, the only way to go forward.
Never ever will we get people to “do the right thing” by penalties if they do not, say, recycle. If this is measured in how many bin bags they put out for collection then all they will do is just get the one bag and any other rubbish they have they will take an deposit in the countryside, in parks and open spaces, and such like. The proposed so-called “bin bag tax” will only cause people to comply on the surface but they will use other methods of how to dispose of their refuse.
Already fly tipping is on the increase, especially in those areas where pilot schemes are running where only a limited amount of color-coded rubbish bags are given to residents and where they have to pay per bag they put out for collection. How much greater is that problem going to be when such schemes end up going nationwide.
Councils may think increase in revenues when they can issue penalties to non-recycling households but they seem to forget how much they, the Council, may end up having to spend on clearing up the fly tipped refuse. It is always amazing that Councils seem to be unable to do their sums properly.
We need incentives rather than penalties; in other words, much more carrot and a good deal less stick.
© Michael Smith (Veshengro), February 2008
Encourage to Recycle
