Pay As You Throw Scheme Proposed

One of the UK’s biggest waste firms calls for “pay-as-you-throw” scheme to drive a revolution in recycling.

14:11 04 June 2018

Suez, one of UK’s biggest waste firms, encourages local authorities to introduce a “pay-as-you-throw” system for household rubbish by 2030. It explained that weighing domestic waste using microchip technology in bins is the key to drive a revolution in recycling.

 

The company, which handles 10million tonnes of waste a year, says that all packing sold in the UK should have to be 50per cent recycled by 2025. It also called for widespread refundable deposit schemes for packing, especially for bottles and cans.

 

The company's UK chief executive, David Palmer-Jones, said: "We believe innovative new systems will arise to capture, recycle, re-use and re-form materials if packaging manufacturers are required by law to have 50% minimum recycled content in their products and adhere to common design standards.

 

"We believe new data systems are also needed to track materials from the point of production, to sale, to the bin and back into production - from cradle-to-cradle, not grave."

 

"Weighing individual businesses and households' residual waste through a "chip-and-bin" system will help gather this data and could enable more "pay-as-you throw" regimes," he said.