I hope george osborne is wrong about women

[mulberrybush]

radio 4 Today this morning mentioned George Osbournes ideas for promoting Green behaviour. He would give shopping vouchers for recycling.

OK- until you think it through. People who have more, will recycle more, and be rewarded by vouchers to prompt them to buy more!

You can hear the wheels go round. We need women's votes, what do women like- shopping, but they feel bad about shopping too much because they have children and worry about the future, so we'll give them a present which will make them feel it is all ok.

Has he got us right? Are we like this?

or do we want politicians with the guts to tell us that it might be better if we have a little less.

I'm sorry if my comment seemed facile, its just that everything he and every other politican is saying at the moment is to try and get our vote, and what every he said he'd still be a wanker ( and a tory) and as such I'd never vote for him anyway.

I think it depends what kind of shopping vouchers. If it is for food I would approve because people's consumption of food stays relatively stable in relation to income and other consumption because they have to eat!

And they would usually be buying food in any case. A council or govt could incentivise greener food practices (ie worth more if you use with local shops and suppliers rather than large supermarkets etc) but that would be harder to implement.

People will shop at Tescos anyway, so giving vouchers is not likely to add to their consumption just replace it.

But yes if on white goods or small consumables it would just add to the problem...

I am persuaded by the behavioural arguments - to actually make people do things they regard as undesirable you have to appeal to incentives. The reality is it works, whether or not we like it morally...

One of the problems of reducing the amount we pay in Council Tax is that recycling is more expensive to collect than general landfill. So where would you cut your budget? Schools, Planning or care for the elderly / disabled - they being the 3 things that your Borough Council still does with your council tax other than rubbish collection. The rest of the council duties lie primarily with your Parish council (paid for out of the precept) or statutory bodies.

The vouchers would be supplied by partner organisations such as supermarkets. Their spin off would be that they would get oncreased footfall from people going to spend their vouchers. So why don't they reduce the amount of packaging in the first place?

Cornflakemum,

er.. actually the eu are charging more per landfill because we are all running out of landfill and they do not want the services going to foreign countries outside the eu and then they can not charge for it themselves.

The eu also has it's fingers in the recycling for profit margins and complexes that are being built using eu companies ie; GERMAN and are making money from that also.

Just like the energy efficient ( cancer causing ) lightbulbs that were an eu dirrective.

The eu have also issued a directive about the uk landfill problem because they basically want us to tarmac and build over our whole country to build more houses for the immigrants they have directed us to take and usher into our country from our eu partner countries and it takes a very long time to be able to build over landfill sites because of the risks from methane etc.

Anyone who really thinks the eu cares about 'green' issues is kidding themselves.

Atlantis you are joking aren't you?

No.

First of all - The population is increasing due to people living longer. The balance of immigration to emmigration are reletively stable.
Second those people would generally work if they were allowed to - take it from me that moving country is NOT an easy option even when it is legal. Of the working immigrants they earn more and pay more tax not because they are paid more per hour but because they are prepared to work longer hours, usually at jobs many in this country would not want to do - did you see cutting edge the other day about traffic wardens?

Thirdly the houses being built are code 4 or above - that makes them more energy efficient and ecologically sound than rebulding the housing stock we have. In addition the soaka ways are far more efficient for a code 3 house even than landfill sites which have an impermeable layer to stop toxic groundwater reaching the freshwater ecosystem.

4th the energy saving bulb technology is EXACTLY the same as the neon strip lightling which as been around for decades. The reason they are so popular now is that manufacturing costs have come down with better glass extruding technology.

I don't know about German factories being subsidised directly by the EU - but thank goodness someone is doing something to make this planet habitable. Good luck to them

I'm obviously being a bit thick here. The dustbin men pick up our recycling every 2 weeks, 2 weeks isn't really enough so we have to take the rest of it to the recycling depot. The alternative would be to put it into the dustbin which would not work because the dustbin men won't take it if it is not supposed to be in there or dump it alongside the road which obviously decent people don't do. Therefore aren't we all recycling anyway?

Anif,

get on your high horse about immigrants much?

But as your went there so will I.

Firstly it's government spin (again) to say that immigration and emmigration are on a par, we all know that this country has swelled since Blair told us we could expect 13,000 in the first year and yes while some of them have the sense to go home now this country has gone to the dogs a lot more are actually stuck here with no job and no way of getting home, they were sold a dream that turned into a nightmare for them.

I do not blame the immigrants for being this this country if the tables were turned I probably would have done the same, I do blame the government for not thinking ahead and saying where are we going to house everyone, where is the local infrastructure to deal with mass immigration, hospitals, schools, doctors, etc.

We all know housing (mostly social) needs to be built, quickly and in bulk to house both foreign and domestic in need because the government stopped local authorities building houses to support the growing numbers in areas of the country that needed it ( basically most ) and allowed private and housing associations to build, these were mainly for the buy or buy and lease sector. Now government wants us to pave over our green belt (not very environmental is it?) and create worse flood plains for the housing stock that exists.

Yes newer houses are more environmentally sound (no one was saying they weren't) but not when your creating areas that will be prone to flooding or where the infrastructure can not cope with the increase, or where everyone ends up living on top of everyone else ( building on browfield sites; ie garage blocks at the back of someones garden).

Who has strip lighting? Didn't that go out in the eighties when people realised it was dangerous?

Atlantis - I mainly agree with you, though it does come across as paranoid conspiracy theory. The EU is so vast now that it does lots of things for no reason at all - certainly not for the good of any particular member state. It is a self-serving monster that takes more and more of our freedoms in return for less and less say in what happens. The EU does come across as more 'green' than the US (the usual comparison). But if you delve a little deeper the EU fisheries and agricultural policies are horribly unsustainable and it is fairly toothless in dealing with nasty bullies like Russia over human rights, environmental issues etc.

The new lightbulbs do indeed use less energy, but they take more energy to manufacture and contain toxins that mean disposing of them is more energy intensive.

The world population is still growing and is set to continue until we reach about 9 billion people where it will level off and possibly even start to drop. The UK population is growing also, people are living longer but we have also had unrestrained immigration which has put huge strain on services and contributed to the most ridiculously overpriced housing market.

New houses are all very well (and we need them) but no matter how 'green' they are, new housing estates still put more pressure on the eco-system which is under huge pressure already from a variety of sources. Refurbishing existing housing stock will always be a more sustainable alternative to building new housing, no matter what NuLab spin says (and how can anyone justify the Pathfinder debacle that is Prescotts crowning glory?).

Perhaps they need to examine the Belgian system. We have to buy specific bags for our rubbish according to the area you live in. I pay 30 euros for a roll of 20 large bags. I pay about 5 euros for the blue recycling bags and the same for a pack of large brown paper bags for garden and veg waste.

The more you recycle, the less of the expensive bags you use, so a roll lasts longer. We have normal rubbish (cooked food, non-recyclable packaging etc) collected each week, as is the garden waste/veg peelings. The latter go on to the municipal compost heap. Blue bags which take tetra packs, tins, cans, squash bottles, plastic bottles are collected every two weeks. Cardboard/paper is collected once a month. they also at intervals take textiles, large household items, leftover building materials, Christmas trees etc. Compost bins are heavily subsidised. I got a massive compost bin for 10 euros.

The rubbish collection is very efficient - if you get the wrong thing in your blue recycling bag you get the equivalent of the 'black spot' - a big red stick on hand and you have to get it right the next time. It's very clear (as it's printed on the bag) what can be put in.

I agree that the voucher scheme might be used to get those to recycle who don't already - at least it's carrot, not stick and that usually works with the recalcitrant.