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Greens cautiously welcome refuse bag charge plan

The Greens have become the first political party to give any welcome to last week's leaked proposals to charge householders for putting out refuse sacks.

The party's principal speaker Darren Johnson, a member of the Greater London Assembly, said: “Policies like this have been shown to reduce waste in other countries, so it definitely needs looking into.

“But we must be very careful that it works properly, and doesn't foster justifiable resentment.

“Most people in Britain don’t have access to recycling facilities. If recycling isn’t a practical option, those people would simply end up paying more for their refuse collection.”

Last week's leak made public confidential proposals from the Performance and Innovation Unit, a section of the Cabinet Office charged with 'thinking the unthinkable'. click here for letsrecycle.com story

It suggested that households that produce more than two bags of rubbish per week should be charged 1 per extra bag or a 5 per month flat rate.

But Mr Johnson warned that ideas like this could “get green taxes a bad name” unless they were properly thought out.

He said that a comprehensive waste reduction strategy would be essential and that this should involve taxes to discourage unnecessary packing and to encourage re-use of materials.

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