Roger Harrabin, BBC News 27 Nov 08;
Controversial pay-as-you-throw schemes could be an acceptable answer to Britain's 15 million tonne mountain of household waste according to a survey for BBC News.
From January English councils will be able to bid for pilot schemes to incentivise people for recycling more and deter them from throwing stuff away.
Previous pay-as-you-throw pilots were abandoned, but the survey showed 79% of women and 70% of men saying they should be rewarded financially if they create less waste and recycle more.
A much narrower majority - 55% of women and 50% of men - said it was only fair they should pay more if they throw away more.
The poll of 1,000 people by NOP offers some encouragement to the British government, which is encouraging councillors to try pay-as-you-throw pilots. Europe is running out of landfill sites and all nations face targets to increase the amount they recycle into new materials.
Just over 70% of both women and men said they would be more careful about creating waste if they had to pay for it to be collected.
But councils may be alarmed by another finding - 46% of men and 41% of women said they did not trust their local authority to administer any new waste charges fairly.
And the narrowness of the margin of people in favour of extra charges may also cause councils to pause.
Ministers are hoping to attract English local authorities to bid for the pay-as-you-throw schemes permitted in the Climate Change Bill, which passes its final hurdle this week.
But previous pilot charging schemes have been hugely controversial, with a computerised chip-and-bin system in South Norfolk being abandoned after repeated technical failures and delays to bin rounds.
Eric Pickles, Conservative local government spokesman, has regularly criticised the "hated bin taxes"; and under pressure, the government has previously sent out mixed messages about whether or not variable charging would go ahead.
This is now resolved, but it looks as though most councils in the UK have been warned off variable charging because of the controversy attached.
