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Should household be charged for their household waste?


In Australia local councils are charging rates for individual household waste and sewerage systems. Rates are standard for all household under one council but different council may have different rates. The question that comes to my mind is one household may produce 5kg of waste per week vs another who produces 8kg or 10kg of waste per week. Because some households are well aware of GHG emissions, environmental degradation and other climate change related issues therefore they produce less waste by changing their behaviour and actions. Whereas others who are least bothered to worry about such issues or does not care at all therefore they continue to produce waste as much as they can and consume more and more resources. So why those household who produces less waste and cares about the environment should pay the same council rates as others who produces twice the amount of waste? Is that because councils don't have the process on how to measure individual household's waste? or is it the same size bins are problem? or Our councils are not proactively looking for solutions which offers incentives to households to reduce their waste?

Councils in Australia can become smarter in various ways to reduce household waste (recyclable and organic) at source by proactively introducing reduced waste charges for those who do care and waste less through smaller bin than the normal size or may be collecting bi-weekly or offering strata units of only one bin for organic and one bin for recyclable items. Why do people need separate bins in strata settings? Why can’t they just have one bin? Trucks can pick up quicker instead of loading and unloading 10 bins, trucks would have to load and unload only 1 bin; wouldn't that be a quicker way of collecting waste and reduce time, effort and petrol? (not to mention co2 emissions and less labor through efficiency in bin collection). Not only truck driver but those individual household in strata living or even big houses on one street spends tremendous amount of time (if put together) for taking out bin every week and putting it back. The tasks can be shared amongst household if there was only one bin. So much of an opportunity is there for council to introduce such practices by offering incentives to become smarter and charge less, collect less waste and worry less about composting organic waste, separating recyclable items and specially land filling.

Comments

  1. Anonymous17 June 2012 at 22:50

    How about an across the board annual community fee that takes the place of fees or taxes for garbage, property tax, school costs, local sales tax, police & fire, etc. Levied on a per head basis. If you are single or old and living alone you pay for one person. If you have eight kids and a wife you pay for 10 people. The world is running out of space and resources this might slow growth donw somewhat.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown3 February 2015 at 09:58

    It's only imperative that the city councils work out a way with the households so that long-term solution of household waste can be determined. The role of rubbish removal agencies like http://www.everythingrubbish.com.au/ in this regard cannot be gainsaid.

    ReplyDelete

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