Countryside Alliance: Government “risks undermining own policies” on waste

Thursday, 24, May 2007 12:00

The Countryside Alliance has broadly welcomed David Miliband MP’s waste strategy announcement today, although warned that Government risks undermining its own policies with its support for fortnightly rubbish collections.

The Government was expected to announce the introduction of so called ‘pay-as-you-throw’ scheme across the country, but has climbed down. Instead it has conceded that the way to increasing recycling is not through penalties, but through incentive and encouraging people to recycle as much household waste as possible.

Countryside Alliance Chief Executive Simon Hart commented: “We are pleased that the Government finally seems to be listening to our arguments about more ‘carrot’ and less ‘stick’. We remain firmly against any policy that will contribute to the already epidemic levels of fly-tipping, such as the ‘pay-as-you-throw’ scheme, and hope that Government policies compliment each other rather than lead to such unintended consequences. Our own fly-tipping campaign has already highlighted the scale of the problem across the UK and pay-as-you-throw could only make that problem worse.

“Government’s insistence on hiking up the landfill tax, as announced in March’s budget, also risks an increase in fly-tipping, as Mr Miliband’s Defra Minister, Ben Bradshaw MP, has acknowledged. Broadly, we agree that everyone has a role to play and a responsibility to our environment – I just hope that the Government doesn’t make it too much of an expensive proposition to do the right thing.”