Part 1
Why is composting such a big deal all of a sudden?
Rubbish removal Northern Beaches will collect all aspects of waste from household furniture domestic appliances and general waste.Have you noticed that composting is in the news a lot recently? The Government and councils are encouraging all of us to compost more of our garden waste and suitable kitchen scraps as well. Do you remember when everyone started talking about insulating your home in the 1970’s? Well, composting is the new insulation because it affects every household and the reason why you should care is that if you do nothing, you could be landed with a big fat bill. This is the first part of a two part article that sets out to explain why waste disposal will become so expensive if we do not take action.
The fact is you are all going to pay much more to dispose of your rubbish in the UK whether you want to or not. You have no choice. The only choice you have is whether you take responsibility for how much waste you dispose of or accept the consequential crippling costs that will follow if you do not. It will not matter whether you are rich or poor, we will all end up paying the price.
One way to minimise the amount of waste we give our councils to dispose of is to compost our biodegradable kitchen and garden waste. It is so easy, yet so effective. The second part will explain what you can do to ensure you do not get burdened with excessive “pay as you throw” charges when they are eventually introduced.
Where are all these costs?
Take a look at your council tax bill. Roughly 5% goes towards collection and disposal of waste. The bad news is that costs could escalate dramatically. We all know the price of fuel is taking off which means collection costs are increasing. More significantly, landfill tax has increased from £24 per tonne to £32 per tonne this year and is planned to escalate further. This stealth tax has huge implications for councils and the costs will inevitably be passed on to council tax payers.
Landfill – The driver
Land in the UK is expensive and frankly there are more productive things to do with it than fill it with rubbish. This is why the Government is discouraging landfill by escalating landfill taxes significantly each year. This is the mechanism the Government is using to encourage councils to find alternative or cheaper ways of disposing of our waste. It also means that it is becoming more economically viable for private enterprise to invest and provide alternative solutions.
Our councils are targeted
Councils are targeted to reduce the amount of biodegradable municipal waste landfilled by 75% of 1995 levels by 2010 and 50% by 2013. If your council landfills more waste than the agreed threshold, then they will be fined £150 for each tonne they exceed their target. If the UK fails to meet their overall target, then the EU will fine us half a million pounds per day for a period that as yet does not appear to be defined. These fines could be massive in that they could mean that offending councils could end up adding millions to your council tax bills as well as cutting vital services. Who pays in the end? – You do!
Pay as you throw
The Government has given the go-ahead for a few councils to experiment with pay as you throw charges. Legislation is in place to allow all councils to do this. Slowly but surely councils have been encouraging us to separate our waste in to green or garden waste, newspapers, glass, tins and with some councils, kitchen waste. Once most of us have got used to these good habits, it becomes easy to pass laws that prohibits us disposing of green waste in our black wheely bin or plastic bags. In Sweden, I understand that it is illegal to landfill biodegradable waste so don’t think that it could not happen in the UK.
It also becomes easier for councils to weigh each category of our waste as this provides them with a stick to fine us for excessive waste or maybe a carrot in the form of a discount on the following years council tax bill. It could be that in future, if you want any green waste to be collected from your kerbside, then you will have to pay extra. After all, it costs money for the council to collect and deliver to a composting facility so why shouldn’t they charge if you should be composting anyway? – Think about that!
What can you do about it?
The usual response to big problems like waste disposal is that it is something that the Government or Council should be responsible for and so they should sort it out. It has always been their responsibility after all. If you still have that attitude, then I am afraid you have missed the point. The point is that the Government is now saying that it is your rubbish and you will soon be made responsible for it whether you like it or not. In the next part of this article I will be examining just how effective composting can be in reducing the weight and volume of waste households produce for disposal and discussing what the benefits could be for individual households. To discover more about composting kitchen waste as opposed to garden or green waste take a look at http://www.compostwizzard.co.uk/compostproducts
The author promotes composting through his website which encourages the recycling of kitchen and garden waste. Check out the domestic and commercial composters that process meat, fish and cooked waste as well as the usual kitchen scraps and garden waste. View the explanatory video.
Article Source: https://EzineArticles.com/expert/Hape_Taylor/198899
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