The Environment

This press article published on the 28th August 2006 in The Daily Mail deals with a new solution to encourage Britons to sort out their rubbish.

To reach this goal, competent authorities have choosen to use new surveillance devices. They fitted wheelie bins with elecronic bugs. Those devices were set in order to make garbage collection more effective by informing garbage men on which bin need to be empty or not. This identifiction system could one day be used to weigh bin contents, and as Germany, Great Britain could tax its population according to the quantity of rubbish they throw.

This system is an answer to garbage problems in Great Britain and to its third-worst place recycling record in Europe which attests to Britons has fallen behind regarding waste treatment. Less than 20% of rubbish is recycled and about 80% goes to landfills whiches will be full in eight years. That’s why United Kingdom government had to find a way to force people to recycle more and throw less.

This device offers the possiblity to garbage services to save time and money by emptying only bins whiches need to be. It aslo could oblige people to sort out their waste by charging them more if they don’t do it. So it’s an intresting solution to Great Britain garbage problems and in favour of environement but it shows some limits. Even if council tax would be cut by £100 thanks to this bug system, people who don’t want to sort out their waste would be taxed more. The second limit is about security and civil liberties, in fact if criminals hack into the dat-base, they could know who is in holiday and burgle those families.

To conclude, the wheelie bin bug system could be intresting if rubbish weight taxes are really incentive and if the data-base is well-used and secured.

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