Ever since the privatisation of bin collection, the collectors have been looking at ways to increase their profits. This is what privatisation is about: nothing to do with recycling, efficiency, or the environment; all about maximising profits. It’s called capitalism.
The best way to reduce waste is to produce less waste. Tons of unnecessary packaging are produced each year, for one purpose: to make the product more attractive, so the producers can sell more to make more profit.
What if all this excessive packaging damages the environment? They can tell us we need to recycle; and to encourage our irresponsible citizens to do this, bin charges are necessary.
Our citizens want to reuse, recycle and protect our environment for future generations but are stopped by the interests of big business. There was not enough profit in glass bottles—they lasted too long—so the plastic bottle was introduced; and they want us to pay to take it away!
Big business will stop at nothing to increase profits. Waste collectors in Co. Donegal and elsewhere have been found guilty of illegal dumping on a number of occasions.
Workers’ health and safety is practically non-existent, as they run after the bin lorries on busy city streets to meet their targets. And all for poverty wages.
Waste collection must be remunicipalised to remove the profit element from something as important as the environment. The polluters—the ones who produce unnecessary waste—must pay. The cost of bin collections is part of the social contract between citizen and state and should be paid for through progressive taxation.
