Don&#39t divert waste tax revenues away from recycling, government is warned

Baroness Barbara Young warned today: “Waste tax revenues must not disappear into the Chancellor's black hole.” Taxing waste disposal should be at the top of the government's action list after Johannesburg, she said – but the proceeds should be used directly to develop sustainable disposal, re-use and recycling systems.

Baroness Young was speaking following national press reports today that the government is planning to raise landfill tax by as much as 20 a tonne, but is not expected to channel all the revenues back into meeting recycling targets (see letsrecycle.com story).

Bad behaviour

“Bad environmental behaviour” should be fought with “bold measures” such as raising landfill tax (currently 13 per tonne) and charging householders for unsorted waste, Baroness Young told delegates at the Agency's first annual Environment UK conference.

She advocated kerbside collections of recyclable waste and pointed to research showing the public would support charging for unsorted recyclable waste, as long as doorstop sorting facilities were provided.

In May 2002, Agency-commissioned research showed that while six out of ten people did not support charging for waste disposal according to the amount generated, six out of ten said they supported charging for the amount of unsorted waste if councils had provided containers for kerbside collections.

Environment tax

Also speaking at the conference, Steen Gade, the director general of the Danish Environment Protection Agency, said yesterday that the EU should impose a set &#39e;nvironment tax' on member states.

“It would be a great idea if all the countries in the EU had a minimum level of taxation in relation to the environment,” Mr Gade said.

He dismissed the notion of having a European ministry of environmental pricing to set the tax, but defended the idea of a EU tax, saying: “Why not? Seen from an environmental point of view, some sort of taxation on a minimum level would be a correct answer. And if we're going to do something that really counts, it is necessary to do it on a European level.”