What a Load of Rubbish

In a Guardian article today:

LGA environment board chairman Paul Bettison said:

"The days of the clingfilm coconut must come to an end. We all have a responsibility to reduce the amount of waste being thrown into landfill, which is damaging the environment and contributing to climate change.

"Families will be pleased to see that more packaging in their shopping baskets can now be recycled. However, this survey shows there is still a lot further to go.

"Reducing packaging is vital if we are to avoid paying more landfill tax and EU fines, which could lead to cuts in frontline services and increases in council tax."

Councils have to pay £32 in tax for every tonne of rubbish that is sent to landfill, a figure that is expected to rise to £48 a tonne by 2010. In addition, from 2010 councils face EU fines of £150 for every tonne that is dumped, which could cost an estimated £200m by 2013.

It is the landfill tax and EU fine which have meant local authorities across the UK have introduced 'alternate weekly collections' (AWCs) of rubbish destined for landfill, and rubbish destined for recycling, leading to the situation where rubbish may be left festering for a fortnight, creating smells, and attracting pests. This has also begun to transform the role of local government, whose responsibility was to provide public services. Now, its role is increasingly that of policeman; monitoring our habits, and punishing people if they use slightly too much stuff, with public services taking a backseat.

Paul Bettison of the Local Government Association (LGA) is wrong. Most families will not be 'pleased' that more of their rubbish can be recycled; they are more likely to be annoyed that they are forced to recycle, and to have the amount of rubbish they are allowed to throw out rationed and monitored by the local authorities.

It is particularly interesting that Bettison and the Local Government Association haven't challenged the landfill tax and EU fines. After all, this is a local government issue, yet the EU and UK government have imposed these rules, and local authorities - councils run by Tories, Labour and Liberal Democrats - have all seemingly welcomed the interference. Laws to force the public into recycling have not been demanded by the public. The LGA cannot pretend that this is public service.

Why isn't the LGA, which claims to "aim to put local councils at the heart of the drive to improve public services" challenging the fine and tax? How is rationing public services and punishing the public 'improving public services'? Why isn't it complaining about the imposition? Given that some landfill is inevitable, why isn't the LGA pointing out that if the UK and EU weren't punishing people for creating refuse, there would be more money available for public services, or perhaps, council taxes would be lower?

The answer must be that local governments suffer from the same problem that national and supra-national governments do. Environmentalism has provided a convenient argument by which administrations have been able to distance themselves from their duty to provide public services. Local authorities are happier to play policeman than they are to jeopardise their weak positions by making decisions. The business of the provision of public services has always been a problem, but it is through the notion of 'greater good' that the public have been convinced that refuse collection and disposal creates far more winners than losers. Nobody wants a landfill on their doorstep. Nobody ever wanted a landfill on their doorstep. But nobody ever wanted rubbish to pile up in their front or back gardens, for rats to infest it, and for diseases not seen for hundreds of years to make a return to the UK. Call us alarmist if you like, but what is the point of sanitation if it isn't to avoid disease? Planning new landfill - or virtually any development - risks upsetting the unholy alliance of NIMBIES and the highly vocal green lobby, to whom no political party in the UK has an answer. As we have pointed out many times: there is no political challenge to environmentalism in the UK.

Politicians have been less and less able to make convincing arguments about what that greater good is and how best to deliver public goods. Environmentalism has filled the void, to justify inaction and inertia; it serves as a system of ready made 'ethics'. The consequence is that, increasingly, we are unable to build roads - which are useful; we are being punished for using our cars - which are useful; we are forced to recycle - which is inconvenient. And in the place of public services we have an increasingly authoritarian state. It stands to reason that a government that cannot deliver public services will instead assume an authoritarian role and make its business the management - not service - of the public. The public's aspirations and ambitions become a problem for government, and controlling our demands becomes the only function left for them. The doom-laden language of Environmentalism is key to this process. It makes it seem rational to claim that, because we are on the brink of an apocalypse, we should 'make do and mend', 'reduce, reuse, and recycle'. And it legitimises the mediation of our expectations by claiming that economic development is environmentally unsustainable, thus excusing itself from any duty to the public whatsoever.

The LGA, your local government, the UK and EU governments and Environmentalism want you to believe that laws to force you to recycle is something that the public want, and that without them,irresponsible members of society will cause a climate catastrophe. They claim to be saving us from ourselves, but the reality is that, consciously or not, eco-rhetoric is a self-serving conceit and deceit.

No Mercy on Earth Day for Eco-Sinner

A BBC article coincides fittingly with Earth Day...

A father-of-four has been left with a criminal record for overfilling his wheelie bin by four inches.

Gareth Corkhill, 26, of Whitehaven, Cumbria, received a £110 fixed penalty notice after Copeland Council staff photographed his raised bin lid.

When he refused to pay he was taken to court where magistrates added a further £115 to the fixed penalty.

Copeland Council has defended its actions and pledged to continue to take action against overfilled wheelie bins.

Wheelie bins have been introduced across the UK as part of the country's commitment to reducing the amount of refuse making its way into landfill sites. Along with wheelie bins come an array of boxes into which recyclable rubbish is supposed to be left out for collection seperately.

Mr Corkhill, who shares a house with his partner and three children and also has a child from a previous relationship, said the authority recently switched from weekly to fortnightly refuse collections, but added that the supplied bins were not big enough to cope.

Alternate weekly collections are the local authorities' new way of 'delivering services'. But recognising that collecting waste for both recycling and landfill simultaneously would cost more money, councils have opted to collect recyclables one week and refuse destined for landfill the next. This also has the consequence of leaving rubbish to fester for a up to a fortnight, and cluttering up people's homes and gardens with multiple containers.

In a statement the council said: "Copeland Borough Council will continue to crack down on the problem of overflowing bins, which cause problems for local residents and in the battle to reduce waste. "It is important that we all reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill. "We can do this by recycling more of what is in our bins, and we would advise anyone who has a problem with too much waste to look at what can be recycled."

What is important - and what ought to be Copeland Borough Council's priority - is removing rubbish. That is what municipal authorities are for. That is what is expected of them. But, over the years, local politics - perhaps more so even than national politics - has been set loftier aims. Now it is about saving the planet, one bin-criminal at a time. Never mind the fact that a father of four in a household of six, might have need of slightly more space than average; there are no mitigating circumstances. The aperture of four inches is not to be tolerated. The bin gestapo are on the scene to protect society Gaia from this wanton act of senseless criminality. Justice has been done. And to complain is to have the blood of future generations on your hands. It's all very convenient - for everybody except real, live human beings.

But of course, real live human beings are merely an inconvenience for Environmentalism. Which brings us to Earth Day.

Founded by the organizers of the first Earth Day in 1970, Earth Day Network (EDN) promotes environmental citizenship and year round progressive action worldwide ... Our mission is to grow and diversify the environmental movement worldwide, and to mobilize it as the most effective vehicle for promoting a healthy, sustainable planet. We pursue our mission through education, politics, events, and consumer activism.

The action taken against Gareth Corkhill by Copeland Council gives the lie to the claim that the environmental movement is 'progressive'. Environmentalism is misanthropic. Full stop. Once authorities get it into their heads that human concerns take second place to a higher purpose, no reason exists for them to imagine that they owe the public anything, or are accountable to them. Public servants become policemen. Refuse disposal ceases to be a public service and becomes a means to monitor and control behaviour. Environmentalism turns the purpose of government and public service on its head. It is convenient for councils that have no idea how to offer public services that they can pretend to be saving the planet rather than doing their jobs.