‘Polluter pays’ principle is sound, if it’s not hijacked

Are bin charges set to be the new water charges? People are complaining of shocking hikes in waste disposal costs at a very vulnerable time for consumers. One irate pensioner wrote in to say: ‘Our bins go out once a month. Now we’ll be paying €169 a year to Greyhound to drive past our door.’

She said that previously the annual cost ‘could be up to €90. Now it will be €169 just for service charge plus charges for weight’.

Several families, who use bins more often, calculate that their bills will double to more than €500 a year.

A post on Askaboutmoney.com said: ‘My bins and car insurance will cost me an extra €600 a year. It’s amazing how these issues are not headline news when people moaning about water charges (a measly €160 a year) get such airplay.’

The latest increases seem to be down to weight-based charges coming in on July 1.

A 2cent (per kilo) minimum charge for green bins was due to come in too but was scrapped at the last minute after a public outcry. This caused bin firms to protest that they have invested in weighing machinery and income they were going to use to pay for this has been removed. But the green bin charge involved a tiny sum.

So has the shift to pay-by-weight been hijacked by waste firms to hide a profits hike? We’ll have to wait until the figures come in next year to find out what people pay when forced to recycle more.

But if so, it seems another good environmental measure – based on the sound EU principle of ‘the polluter pays’ – will get a bad name.

The pay-by-weight principle will get the blame – just as water charges were discredited by dreadful PR mismanagement and political opportunism by opposition politicians.

Across the EU, this polluter-pays principle has massively boosted recycling and cut wastage.

In 2003, the average Irish person produced 730kg of rubbish. Ten years later, after bin charges were seriously introduced, that was cut to 586kg – the sixth best reduction in the EU.

But it’s still a lot of rubbish, especially when you consider 42% of it ends up in landfill. Spread out, your annual unrecycled rubbish would probably cover an acre.

Your legacy after 80 years or so living on this planet will be over 20 tonnes of disgusting mess – enough to cover a small farm. That’s dirty nappies, dog poo in plastic bags and vegetable waste all mixed in with batteries, old clothes and appliances.

Recycled or composted, there’s no problem with waste. But when it’s all mixed together, that unholy mishmash could take thousands of years to decompose.

Pay-by-weight is another positive step towards reducing waste that will divert hundreds of thousands of tonnes away from landfill sites and into recycling and composting centres.

But the public may not stand for it if charges are hiked too much. We have to rely on competition to keep waste firms in line. The more you shop around, the more they will behave themselves.

Most companies don’t quote charges, which vary according to region. But the table above shows a small selection from south Dublin, which highlight how much you can save.

While scorn was heaped on former environment minister Alan Kelly’s assertion that most people could save money through pay-by-weight, more careful recycling will certainly pay dividends. Did you know you can put all food waste into the brown bin, depending on your provider – even meat?

A good old-fashioned compost heap in your garden will help too – and create some fertile soil to make up for all that landfill!