Whitehall plans to punish residents for throwing away rubbish responsibly
Caroline Nokes, the Conservative candidate for Romsey at the next General Election has warned this week of Labour proposals for a new ‘tip tax’, in addition to soaring levels of council tax and a new regime of direct charges for the collection of household rubbish. The small print of the Government’s proposals for new ‘financial incentives’ on rubbish tips were recently included in an obscure Whitehall document.
The plans call for local Councils to charge residents for using their local civic amenity sites to throw away household rubbish that they cannot fit in their bins. Currently councils have a legal duty to provide sites for local residents to dispose of household waste, free of charge.
· Tip tax: In a Government consultation paper, Labour Ministers call on councils to levy new bin taxes for the doorstep collection of household rubbish. Yet the detail also recommends new charges on local residents who dispose of household rubbish responsibly at an official council rubbish tip. There would be no reduction in council tax either for the ‘bin tax’ or the ‘tip tax’.
· Fly-tipping will soar: Independent research by the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science has found that easy access to rubbish sites is essential to prevent fly-tipping. It warns that reducing access or increasing the costs of using such sites will, in turn, increase fly-tipping. Illegal dumping is now at a record level, with 2.5 million incidents reported across England last year, but only 1 in 100 fly-tippers are ever prosecuted.
Caroline said:
“This Government has an appalling record on fly-tipping. Yet their plans for a new ‘tip tax’, on top of bin taxes and existing council tax bills, will punish responsible behaviour. Recycling targets have already compelled many Councils, like Test Valley, to introduce schemes such as the alternate weekly bin collections, now it looks like they want to charge those responsible residents who take large items to the tip in Bunny Lane.
“This isn’t even green taxation – in many ways it is anti-green and will reward fly-tipping – with more fridges, sofas and black bin bags littering our rural lanes and open spaces. In Lee in Romsey Extra we already have a significant problem with fly-tipping, this proposal could make it even worse.”
Notes to editors
LABOUR’S TIP TAX
Under the Environmental Protection Act 1990, councils currently have a legal duty to arrange for places to be provided at which local residents can deposit and dispose of their household waste, free of charge. A ‘civic amenity sites’ is the technical term given to a local rubbish dump. Councils may charge for the disposal of commercial waste.
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1990/Ukpga_19900043_en_3.htm#mdiv51
The Government has been consulting over its plans to introduce new bin taxes for the collection of household rubbish. The consultation closed on 16 August 2007. The small print of the report includes plans to abolish the legal duty to provide free sites, and make councils charge for the use of the services, explaining that tip taxes would have to go hand in hand with new bin taxes.
“The Government would also make legislative changes to allow financial incentives to be implemented at civic amenity (CA) sites to avoid a situation where household waste was simply diverted to CA sites” (para 5.6).
DEFRA, Consultation on the Incentives for Recycling by Households, May 2007.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/corporate/consult/waste-incentives/index.htm
LOCAL RUBBISH TIPS VITAL TO STOP FLY-TIPPING
Independent research by the Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science has found that access to civic amenity sites is essential to help reduce fly-tipping. By contrast, it warns that reducing access or increasing costs of using such sites will increase fly-tipping:
“There are higher rates of fly-tipping in more densely populated areas, and most especially in those suffering multiple deprivation, notably where there is overcrowding, poverty and unemployment. Opportunities to store waste and transport it for legal disposal at civic amenity sites may be limited for residents here” (p.iii).
“The strong view of waste authorities is that there are two key drivers of fly-tipping:
• the costs of legitimate disposal; and
• the availability of civic amenity and other waste disposal sites” (p.iv).
“Local authority policies and practices can inadvertently create temptations and opportunities for fly-tipping. Opening hours of, information systems relating to, sites for, rules of, accessibility to, and patterns of charges for civic amenity sites can all be configured in ways more or less conducive to fly-tipping by householders, businesses, waste carriers and travellers” (p.vi).
Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science / University College London, Fly-tipping: Causes, Incentives and Solutions, May 2006.
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/localenv/flytipping/pdf/flytipping-causes.pdf
SOARING LEVELS OF ILLEGAL DUMPING
· The Government has admitted that the number of fly-tipping incidents has soared from 926,534 in 2004-05 to 2,509,976 in 2005-06 (Hansard, 25 June 2007, col. 83W).
· A survey by the Institute of Public Finance has found that only 1 in 5 people nationally support ‘pay as you throw’ taxes (cited in Public Finance, 3 August 2007).
http://www.cipfa.org.uk/publicfinance/news_details.cfm?News_id=31090
· The Keep Britain Tidy Campaign has warned, “the so-called, ‘pay as you throw’ scheme – which involves placing micro chips in bins to asses the amount of rubbish each home creates – may result in people simply dumping their garbage illegally in a bid to avoid paying up… It is a real challenge for a large family to keep their rubbish down to a minimum – especially if they are given poor recycling facilities and only have their bin collected once a fortnight. Faced with a fine, some are bound to take the easy option and simply fly-tip their rubbish” (Encams press release, 5 October 2006).
http://www.encams.org/home/newsdetail.asp?nw=153
· A report by the Countryside Alliance found that black bags full of domestic rubbish account for 63% of all fly-tipping; and just 1 in every 100 fly-tipper is prosecuted (Countryside Alliance, Tipping Point, 2007).
http://www.countryside-alliance.org.uk/images/stories/pdf/2007_tipping_point_report.pdf
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