An interesting idea that I personally would welcome because I generate far less trash than is allowed weekly. But I wonder if this will lead to people stuffing their trash into neighbors bins. My neighbor currently does this occastionally. I don't mind now...but if this was in place, what would happen? I think a better solution is a culture change. It's the hardest change to make but it's the most effective and will ripple into other areas of sustainability.

Johann, I agree...the problem with many fancy trash schemes is that they just lead to more illicit dumping. This strategy will just piss people off, and does not address the dumping.

Back home in Toronto (I live in the UK now), the household recycling program has been incredibly successful, apparently, with nothing more than good education and the occoasional tap on the shoulder (note in the mailbox) when the collectors notice someone putting the wrong things in the wrong bin. I see no reason why this gentler, simpler approach couldn't work elsewhere, especially the UK where people *really* resent being told what to do.

The chip strategy has the disadvantages of appearing overly complicated, intrusive and heavy-handed; it will create resentment, and possibly do more damage than good.

Sounds similar, yet backwards, to a pilot program and new company that we have here in Philadelphia called Recycle Bank. Same sort of microchip on the trashcan to weigh things, but in this case, they weigh the recyclables and give rewards (coupons for local stores) for the amount recycled. So far, people seem to really like it, in some cases recycling rates when from 10% to 80% - and the city saves money on disposal costs.
It will be interesting to see how it turns out...http://www.recyclebank.com/

That's a pretty neat idea, Mike.

It seems an incentive would be more effective in increasing recycling and reducing waste rather than a punishment. Especially in America.

Excellent idea Mike.

A similar thing could work with garbage. A reward for putting out fewer bags or less that a certain amount of weight. The city could then pay the homeowner a refund on their taxes.

This is a decent idea done in that overbearing nanny state way that UK Government and local authorities do only too well. I live in a block of flats with communal bins - each flat generates different volumes of waste, so pro-rating a waste collection charge would be unfair. More to the point, different areas have different capacity for recycling - if I can't recycle (for example) cardboard, it isn't fair to then charge me to dispose of it. There may even be grounds for a monopolies investigation.

Another stick with no carrot in sight. You can bet your bottom dollar that the charges we ALREADY pay for waste collection via Council Tax will not be removed, or if they are, they will simply be conveniently replaced with something else.

Boulder, CO aims to be a waste free community (or darn near) by 2020, thanks to a local org, Ecocycle. Modern recycling and composting facilities, and a Center for Hard to Recycle Materials will allow them to turn almost 100% of the city's trash into profit by selling the compost and recyclables. ecocycle.org

Sadly, I've been bitted once too many times by "good-ideas" such as this. I very much doubt it's got that much to do with environmentalism and is more to do with local council revenue generation.

They probably use private contractors for their waste collection and the company have complained about rising waste levels. This means they'd have to renegotiate the contract, something the local council will want to avoid.

My experience of living in the UK for the last few months is not that people "won't" recycle but they "can't".

Of what I put out out in the rubbish each week, more than half is recyclable but there is no way of doing so in my area. In principle, 70-80% of my weekly waste is recyclable, but only 20-30% is recyclable in practice in my area.

The entire garbage and recycling system seems to be deeply flawed -- plastics, including plastic bottles, are not recycled at all over here as "that would lead to trucks of empty bottles going around the country". This crazy objection can be fixed with a back-of-truck compactor or chipper. And since the bottles are currently being collected and put into garbage, there's the same amount of air being trucked around the country anyway.

Cardboard is also not recycled. So even if you've gone to the effort of getting cardboard-packaged goods, you still end up putting it in landfill.

The council offered to put me in contact with a group to whom I could post cartons for recycling. They also helpfully suggested that I could take my bottles and cardboard to a depot on the other side of the city for recycling.... by car. (vehicles full of air again?).

Driving to the recycling depot... oh the irony.

The other problem is storage of waste & recycling between collections. A large portion of the population live in small apartments and in my area they are over 200 years old. Rubbish and recycling collection has changed a lot in that time but the space available to us has not. And now we have 4 separate bins to accommodate.

The local authority was looking for ways of reducing the amount of landfill so they created an extra bin system for compost as it's a "recycling or composting" target that they are trying to meet. A lovely example of where targets skew actions -- we're now expending lots of energy and money composting renewables but we're not recycling non-renewables (plastics etc).

Arghhh.....

In Chelsea Michigan we have a pay as you dump program. Simple and low tech. You pay 2 dollars for a orange bag (purchased from town at local stores) and you stuff it full of trash. More trash you have more bags you buy.

My family of four uses one large orange bag a week. Everything else is recycled through the town recycle program.

Where I really feel pinch is when I buy an appliance item like a TV, cd player, couch or computer. It really makes you think about how you are going to get rid of it or think about what you are buying to replace it, since you can't fit it in a large orange bag.

Another perk is that I don't pay for somebody else's trash habits. If they make more trash, they pay for it. I bet there are some people who live by themselves that might only fill up that orange bag once or twice a month.

The point here. Simplicity is how it works. Bags not chips. Much more low tech and easy to promote.

East Lansing has a similar program. Buy Yellow bags for trash. And a good recycling program as well, with boxes for metal and plastic to be placed at the curb.

In Austin,TX, we have a pay as you throw system as well except its based on volume. There are three sizes of trash cans, 30, 60, and 90 gallons. Your trash fee is based on the size of your trash can. Although the fee isn't that big of a difference, it's interesting to note that the 30 gallon is green, the 60 is gray & blue, and the 90 gallon is a very standout beige. I feel a little ashamed to have one of the few beige cans on a street of blue and greens, but I do have 3 roommates.

"The point here. Simplicity is how it works. Bags not chips. Much more low tech and easy to promote".

Sadly, simplicity does not seem to be a word known to local authorites and the myriad lobbyists and quangos who now seem to dictate policy in this country. If it doesn't involve RFID, CCTV, central databases, biometrics, black boxes or satellite tracking then they're just not interested. It really is becoming disturbingly Orwellian here and I'm starting to seriously question the motive for it all. It feels like we're gradually becoming a police state.

My hometown (in the US) has been doing pay-as-you-throw by volume for some time (with prepaid stickers on the cans, and the option to pay a yearly collection fee to opt out); it is the carrot, as it sent what my family paid for garbage collection down to a small fraction of what it'd been before.