Should the goverment start to fine people who do not recycle....or is that going too far?

Answer 1

That's going to far. They encourage us to recycle but don't supply different bins and never collect any recycled material. It's not practical to take four kids and bags of rubbish on the bus - and I don't think the bus company would allow that anyway.

Answer 2

The Government - or rather the local authority which is the waste collection authority WILL start fining, it's no longer a question of 'should they' See first link. But you mustn't recycle your Christmas paper or that will cause you to be fined - see second link, Some councils have already threatened fines - see third link. The trouble is that the Councils themselves can face being fined if they don't arrange recycling - see fourth link. And a Government Minister, involved in recycling, is himself in trouble with his council for not sorting his rubbish - see fifth link. However, there does need to be some logic so what is recycled is the same across the country - we don't need different rules in every waste collection area. And we need to know a lot more about what we are throwing away. For example, I take quite a lot of medication. Pills now all come in blister packs - one half of which is metal foil, the other half of which is plastic. Where do I recycle those. And isn't packaging pills like this just adding to the rubbish mountain - whats wrong with pills being dispensed in reusable glass bottle like they used to be?

Answer 3

No, the government has more important things to do, like protect our borders! This is not an issue for the federal government. If your talking state and local, no again. Consumer awareness, and being good stewards should not be forced on the public. I live in a nanny state, that regulates, or tries to regulate everything. They were even proposing an extra tax here on diapers. Can you imagine that? Since they account for so much of the states garbage. And where would that money go? Slush fund. That's extortion. Also they tax TV's and monitors 8 bucks to go towards recycling. That's not cool. I don't need to be forced to recycle. I think that's true of most people.

Answer 4

Most municipalities require people to pay for recycling whether they recycle or not. So yes, you do get fined for not recycling.

What most people don't realize is that, for most plastics and paper, it actually uses more energy to recycle an item than it does to make new ones.

Where does that energy come from? Oil.

Where does the pollution from the oil that gets burned to produce the energy to recycle that plastic bottle go? Take a wild guess...

Answer 5

Seems like a good idea to me, seeing as the cost of landfill disposal is rising steadily as we start running out of land in which to dump the vast amounts of waste produced. The following came from recycleforlondon.co.uk:

"Why recycle more?

Londoners produce 3.4 million tonnes of rubbish a year, which is enough to fill Canary Wharf tower every 10 days. Yet waste analysis has found that 60% of what we throw out could be recycled. Despite this, the problem is getting worse as we buy more packaged and disposable goods. Most of London's rubbish is disposed of by burial in landfill sites, or incineration, both of which have a significant impact on our environment."

Barnet Council in North London already has the legal power to fine people who don't recycle, and strangely enough, they have one of the highest recycling rates in London - 27.4% last year, up an impressive 7% on the previous year. You can find the figures on Barnet Council's web site:

http://www.barnet.gov.uk/corporate-plan.pdf

and on the Government's Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) web site at:

http://www.defra.gov.uk/defrasearch/search_results.jsp?category=&doctype=&options=&date=&database=Internet_Files%2B&batchsize=20&query=recycling+rates+london+2005
(It's the second document down).

As far as I'm aware, Barnet Council have only had to fine one family in a borough of 330,000 people for refusing to do any recycling at all, so any suspicions of it being a stealth tax or a system to be abused to raise money for the council seem unfounded.

Personally, I've never understood the opposition to recycling - it takes so little effort to bung rubbish into a couple of different bags and then put them out in a box for collection.

Answer 6

What this government should do is to provide more free doorstep recycling on a regular basis so nobody has any reason not to. Get them to stop mealy mouthed bollocks such as "carbon neutral" and "carbon offset" All that is is low impact technology as prescribed by the Greens, they do not want to be seen to have the Greens running the agenda so they alter the language. Spin, spin and more spin.
As to your original question, Fly tipping is illegal but is difficult to enforce due to the lack of witnesses. These eejuts who dump fridges and cookers in the street should be either fined or jailed for persistent fly tipping.

Answer 7

No, a fine is a Government and judicial procedure whereby they take away a persons money against their will, that by definition is stealing and it is a serious criminal offence. They also take this money from people by force or other penalty such as the threat of the forced removal of the victims property, In law this is called, "demanding money with menaces" another very serious criminal offence practised by our Government and judiciary on a daily basis.

Logic dictates therefore, that when you suggest that the Government implement more fines what you are actually suggesting is that the Government steal even more of our money than they steal already.

What I want to hear is more people protesting about the money already being stolen from us by the Government and more people telling the Government to f.uck off when they make unreasonable financial demands on people, that's what I do.

Answer 8

If the government provided adequate recycling bins so ppl could recycle all of their waste and people didnt recycle, then yes fine them, but beings as they dont make such efforts then no they have no place in fining anyone !

Answer 9

YEAH - and make them work in labour camps too - or a death camp for a repeat offender!

Just kidding... Recycling is gonna be more and more important as time goes on and the population continues to climb but fining? Seems a bit harsh. People who dump cookers or refrigerators by the side of the road should be heavily fined though.

Answer 10

No not really but fining companies and businesses that don't is a better idea too many firms get away with paltry fines for polluting and destroying the environment that taxing the general for such offences seem a waste of time and a night mare to police but yes it is a good idea theoretically