Imposing change - would you be in favour??

[Twattergy]

Reading the climate change threads there is a lot about the changes we can make to do our bit for the environment. But my feeling is for the dial to shift some fundamental things need to be imposed on us, not a choice. Covid has shown us that people will manage restrictions of they have to. I think there should be:
-Compulsory water metering

• Massive clamp down on water waste by water companies- like business threatening level fines
• Restrict number of flights per person per annum and pay a significant tax if you need to do more
• Product makers forced to ditch unnecessary packaging ( I acknowledge much food packaging reduced food waste so you can't just look at food)
• My most extreme one is rationing of meat, the US and UK per capita consumption of meat is ridiculously high and all of us would be fine if we ate less of it (and yes govn would need to compensate meat producers, but furlough shows state compensation is possible if the need is strong enough).

There are others but those are my opening thoughts!

I'd be in favour of all those plus more e.g 500-1000 disposable nappies allowed per baby then cloth nappies for the rest of the time. At the minute it's about 6000 disposables per baby and that's unsustainable, something drastic needs to be done.

Apart from the meat these should be fairly easy to do

Expect push back from the water companies who would rather raise prices than fix a leak

Other things to consider maintenance we pat for groundwater as well as tap water however our drains have so much silt in them the grass needs cutting its literally growing out the top of many as a child I remember the drain sucker going round and in the rain the roads didn't flood because the drains worked

Encouraging a vegetarian/vegan diet good in theory but in practice just means a load of people producing shite meat copies that's bad for your wallet your health and me because I'm gluten intolerant (went to a restaurant with my family they said ooh look at the veggie menu it looks great! It all had wheat in it so I ate meat)

Flights wouldn't effect me woukd I be asked to donate my unused carbon footprint or rewarded for being a non flyer?

The food packaging one is a great idea that everybody talks about and literally no-one implements remember the whole morrisons trialing unwrapped cucumbers? They still have plastic all over them im guessing it didn't go well

I couldn't find a nursery willing to allow cloth nappies

Recycling clothing needs to be more the norm we have hundreds of charity shops charging shop prices to pay extortionate rents this isn't really fair but on my town we have one that sells everything for £1 it's a charity outlet shop and does fast business restocking several times a day

I think rewards for not flying is a good idea. Not in favour of being able to donate unused airmiles as it just allows unnecessary additional flights by other people. I'm terms of encouraging vegetarianism I don't think it has to even go that far, just preventing the over consumption of meat is enough. I saw a stat for the per capita consumption of meat in the US and it was x6 of most of the rest of the world. Completely unnecessary, creates health problems and massively environmentally damaging. I'm in favour of any practical limits on over consumption. Even if that affects my current quality of life.

I agree to all you’ve mentioned.

I think we have to nationalise the water companies.

Vegan
don’t fly
don’t drive
one child

that’s all I’m willing to do

i wish all councils accepted recycling. Our last council was fab - if the item said it was recyclable - they accepted it and (presumably) it was recycled. All we had to do was ensure it was clean and in one of two bins. Easy. High recycling rates achieved
Moved house and omg. I think our recycling bin might get emptied once per year, if it’s not glass or plastic marked with 1 or 4 it’s not taken. No other recycling available in town either for things like bread bags/crisp packets etc. Very few recycling bins are out out the relevant bin days as a result.

Increase in recycling our council used to take fabrics clothing etc then they stopped citing the multiple clothing banks which gave been mostly removed making a list of things on my home we need a book bank too

Also food waste recycling yes I know I could get a green cone but the neighbours have rats and I'm not keen to attract them into my garden

My frustration is when there is recycling and people still don't put stuff in the recycling bin

My neighbour's doesn't seem to use the recycling facilities

Recycling in this country is shipped abroad where it's dumped / burned / anything else dodgy so whether it goes into the right bin or whatever is irrelevant really.

I'd like to see a bigger push on refilling and reusing. Rather than throwing our washing up liquid bottles etc into a recycling bin it's best to refill them imo and shops need to start facilitating this and there also needs to be more awareness.

I agree that recycling is mostly green washing. It gets exported and dumped.

Better to reduce it and reuse.

Yes that would be good

I buy the pouches for hand wash

In the old days the body shop used to do a refill service

There was a really good refill shop in our town but it sadly closed a few months ago due to lack of business. There are still a few shops that do liquid refills (shampoo, washing uk liquid etc) but food refills are no longer an option for me so I've had to go back to buying pasta etc in plastic at the supermarket. It's that or not eating and it shouldn't be like this imo.

Our Tescos takes back the plastic packaging so we collect this up now

At least it's better than before when it couldn't be recycled at all

Waitrose did a trial scheme of refills in some branches but not near us

We are getting a ‘refillable’ shop soon. I’m stupidly excited. Remember them from the 89s and haven’t seen once since!

Op re restricting flights - would there be a limit on the number of flights or the miles flown?

I don't know how it would work but I think if they were able to allocate each household a 'bad for the environment allowance' and then you decide how to use it up. So I can't be arsed to do cloth nappies so I'll use quite a lot of disposable nappies but I'll cycle everywhere and not go on an aeroplane. My friend loves holidays so she'll blow her allowance on a return flight to Spain but sacrifice elsewhere.

No baths in new build homes. No replacement baths.
Solar panels should attract tax reliefs and should not be subject to planning or other rules to do with aesthetics. freeholders should not be allowed to include or enforce environmentally unfriendly clauses in leases, such as no solar panels, no washing lines, no ground source heat pumps etc.
landlords should be made to properly insulate their properties.
all government owned buildings should be made carbon neutral.
children should be bussed to school or taken by walking bus.
and so on…

My most extreme one is rationing of meat, the US and UK per capita consumption of meat is ridiculously high and all of us would be fine if we ate less of it (and yes govn would need to compensate meat producers, but furlough shows state compensation is possible if the need is strong enough).

How much and for how long would you compensate beef, pork, mutton, chicken farmers for?

As long as it takes. Still cheaper than having everything go up in flames.

Also avocado and almonds. All very water intensive.

The thing is, lots of what we use everyday was a treat, and for good reasons.

Are we going to limit the number of kids people have and restrict the size of houses? A maximum number of miles in a car each year? What about fast fashion - a limit to the number of new t shirts a year?

I don't know.

What do you think should be done, if anything?

A portion of almonds is about 7, it takes 12 litres of water to produce one almond so less than 100 litres for a portion of quality protein containing healthy fats.. To produce one small beefburger it takes about 5000 litres. I would like to know if the royal family are making changes or is just the poor put upon tax paying wage slaves that are supposed to make the sacrifices.

And here we go with the whataboutery.

Have a rant about the royal family, by all means, but don't conflate the issues.