.jpg){kind=link}
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
British MPs waging a war on plastic are demanding a “latte levy”, to try to contain the growing environmental catastrophe caused by millions of latte sipping city dwellers discarding their coffee cups after a single use.
‘Latte levy’ of 25p urged by MPs in bid to cut cup waste
By Roger Harrabin
BBC environment analyst
5 January 2018
MPs are calling for a 25p “latte levy” on disposable coffee cups – and a total ban unless recycling improves.
A report by the Environmental Audit Committee says the tax should be used to improve the UK’s recycling and reprocessing facilities.
The MPs say throwaway cups should be prohibited altogether by 2023 if they are not all being recycled.
In response, Starbucks said it would try out a 5p cup charge in 20 to 25 central London outlets.
“We will begin the trial in February and initially it will last for three months,” the firm said, adding that it continued to offer a 25p discount to customers who brought their own reusable cups.
The government agrees plastic waste is a problem and will seek evidence on a tax on single-use plastics.
‘Revolution’ needed
The committee’s chair, Mary Creagh MP, said: “The UK throws away 2.5 billion disposable coffee cups every year – that’s enough to circle the planet five and a half times.
“Almost none are recycled and half a million a day are littered. Coffee cup producers and distributors have not taken action to rectify this and government has sat on its hands.
“The UK’s coffee shop market is expanding rapidly, so we need to kick start a revolution in recycling.”
…
Read more: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42564948
Concerns about recycling and waste disposal have risen in Europe, since China banned imports of foreign waste back in October. Waste and recycling is a sensitive issue in Britain, substantial quantities of waste which is supposed to be recycled seems to end up in landfill or incinerators.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I hate to be an idiot, but what does “MP” stand for in this context? — “municipal planner”, by any chance?
MP = Member of Parliament – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_of_parliament
Yes I always get MP mixed up (mud pies, man posters, Metropolitan Police, Military Policeman, Mounted Police, etc,) – wish posters would just say Member of Parliament instead of the acronym. Doesn’t really add much to the post. I hate acronyms, maybe I’ll start an anti acronym movement, but I doubt it…
You could call it the AAM.
“Hivemind January 6, 2018 at 9:11 pm”
I hate TLA’s.
I had a boss ask me to read some “bumf” from the company and give him my comments on it , he wasn’t happy when I said it didn’t make sense as it was full of three and four letter acronyms which were not explained anywhere either when first used or in foot notes or in an appendix, what I found the funniest thing was that he knew what each and every one of them meant.
Good result was he never asked me again.
James Bull
Robert. You are correct. However, for members of the Environment Committee it stands for “Moronic Poseur”.
Mike Munger of Duke University has a succinct classification system for waste that all politicians and environmental policy bureaucrats should heed. Mike’s classification system is: if someone is willing to pay you to take something away, then that thing is a resource. If you have to pay someone to take it away, then it is junk.
For those muttering about MP, while acronyms can be confusing, every country has its version of government and the words as opposed to the acronym may be no more explanatory than the letters. Non Americans may not know what senators and congressmen are let alone terms like House of Representatives. Most Brits talk about MPs and hardly ever use Member of Parliament, so just consider it a really short word. IPCC – Independent Police Complaints Committee, however is confusing 😉
Out of interest Phillip, what does the ‘J’ stand for? (I always get it mixed up with Judge, Justice, Jew or Jerimiah; or, for that matter, jolly, joker, jihadi, jocund or jinn.
Member of Parliament — thanks, I really didn’t know. “Municipal Planner” would have worked in the context.
or Murky Policy-makers, maybe. (^_^)
I wonder what would happen if we taxed all trash. I guess it would cost more to live trashy.
Trash Tax = TT — there’s an acronym I hope I never see.
In the pre politically correct days we used to say it stood for moronic poofter. I know it is unfair on those of a gender limited viewpoint persuasion but people were not quite so sensitive then.
Members of Parliament, equivalent to US Members of Congress, and equally nutty. Here in Michigan, we’ve had a 10 cent deposit on carbonated soda and beer bottles for a long time, and it works. You return them to the store and you gets your money back. It could work for coffee cups too. It gives homeless people a source of income to dig for them in trash cans.
“Ronald P Ginzler January 6, 2018 at 6:10 pm”
Not limited to the homeless, I used to collect refunds on bottles years ago in the UK when I was a kid to fund my candy stash!
Perhaps a 25p per cup charge that is refundable or waivable by returning your prior used cup.
There is a big margin on coffee. Why not charge an extra 5p for the cup and a 25p discount on a refill? [No. I expect the old cup to be binned]
Bryan A, the problem is not about littering (although there is plenty), it’s about the non recyclable nature of plastic covered card. Actually it’s easy to recycle as waste energy but our government and their opposition are dumb. Personally I favour the tax as the coffee companies are avoiding other taxes at present.
Tiny,
You realize that it isn’t the coffee company paying the tax, right? It’s the consumer that paid. They just raised your prices, it didn’t cut into the coffee companies profit.
German supermarkets charge a deposit on bottles and cans, but the ones I’ve been in also have a machine which reads the barcode on returned items and gives you a credit for use in that supermarket. All automatic- and it WORKS! (Maybe more than their Energiewende…)
Patrick MJD
Whilst I was a policeman in Scotland in the mid 70’s/80’s we collected discarded glass Irn Bru bottles (or any other refundable glass bottle) during night shifts.
Our full height clothing lockers were put to good use storing them, and on a shift of 10 or so, it represented enough bottles to fund a shift night out once a year.
I live in NH, which is New Hampshire not Northern Hemisphere. We are surrounded by states with the five cent deposit requirements on bottles and cans. Because of the distribution nightmare of labeling a lot of these bottles and cans with the deposit tags are sold in the NH stores without having to pay the deposit.
Instead of recycling I keep the empty deposit containers in a separate bin and once or twice a year I bring them over to The Peoples Republic of Vermont (13 miles away), get the deposit money, and bring it back to NH.
A few years ago there was a group of recyclers that were caught taking the deposit containers from one the deposit redemption centers and trucking them out to Michigan to get the ten cent refund.
kcrucible, that’s true of any tax. However a plastic cup tax is one that the big companies wouldn’t be able to avoid, where the little companies can’t. Maybe.
You realize this is not true for any significant taxes. The price grows up *faster* than the tax is being added, while consumption drops and profit falls.
MuPpet.
Brilliant mate!
What does that mean, Mr Southerndistrict?
Abbreviations, acronyms and initialisms were invented in the days of manuscript and have no proper part on a keyboard and the Twenty-first Century.
A style manual is not a grammar.
This site – for those who don’t already know it – may be of interest.
https://www.acronymfinder.com/
it doesn’t tell you which version of – say – MP is right in the context you saw it, but it may give you a lead.
And, if you do crosswords – or set them – it is an unending source of inspiration!
Auto
Massive Parasite
Why is it the cups producers and distributors at fault if the end user is the one who throws it to the curb?
DAVIES – revise the wording and rethink …
“Why is it the child producers fault when it is the end user who throws it to the curb?”
How about they put a 10p deposit on them that way children, homeless people etc can make some money aswell as help save the planet through recycling. Politicians should try to include people in the solving the problem side of it instead of villianizing them.
What the government is not doing is fostering the advanced use of trash sorting machines that will eventually allow us to mine the garbage dumps for their hidden wealth of resources. Eventually, they will ask us to only do trash in one can and garbage in the other. The machines will do the rest of the sorting and processing and do it more efficiently than any human. This will minimize unions and retirement plans, but they do have to plan for maintenance, repair, and replacement.
They already have such sorters
http://www.krausemanufacturing.com/recycling-equipment/recycling-sorting-equipment/
I suggest the MPs rethink their ire. Perhaps they should consider what the public health impact would be if new – ie clean, sterile – cups or containers were NOT used. Cholera epidemic anyone?
Yes, most food service businesses that use disposable cups/containers/utensils do so for health reg reasons. Fewer headaches involved, plus they don’t have to hire dishpit crew.
The correct point here is that the vast majority take their drinks away with them so they can hardly be given a china mug can they?
Rethink landfills.
A mine is a place where valuable things are concentrated enough to allow extraction and purification and that is accessible by road or rail or sea.
Like I said. Rethink landfills.
What business with non plastic cups doesn’t use a (non human) dish washer these days? While there are plenty of instances of food poisoning I doubt any of them are from a coffee cup.
Who really gets the 25p and what will they really do with it?
It would be collected by the store operator and then sent to Govn’t, a bit like VAT (15%) in the UK and GST in AUS (10%) and NZ (15%). The tax is charged on an item, the consumer pays that tax. The store operator then pays the Govn’t the tax collected. So in effect, store operators become unpaid tax collectors for the Govn’t. Like all taxes, most of the revenue raised disappears in to a consolidated fund and rarely gets used for purpose.
Good luck trying to pay 15% vat in the UK. Thatcher raised it to 17.5%, now it’s 20%.
“Jer0me January 6, 2018 at 9:28 pm”
Yes, you are correct, 17.5% VAT. It’s been at least 23 years since I was a VAT collector for UK’s HM Govn’t.
It’s a punitive tax, otherwise known as a sin tax. Its whole purpose is to discourage the activity being taxed and to raise revenue. They’re not even pretending that the money will be used for any particular purpose.
If they want to continue in business, they had better come up with a product that can be recycled. It’s fine to blame the end user but, if the market provides them with no alternatives, then it’s not really their fault either.
Reminds me of the ‘save-the-environment’ tax on paper bags in my beloved Los Angeles, yet the bags are made of recycled paper.
IOW, just another lie to steal more of our money.
“Everything government touches turns to crap.”
– Ringo Starr
It can be recycled, there is a company in the UK already doing so. It is the collection and Delivery to them that is the problem.
They developed the technology themselves without any help from the UK Government.
There is also the problem of scale, the company involved can handle about a million a year and the usage is billions per year.
By the way these are plastic and paper, the paper cup is coated with plastic on the inside to make them waterproof.
Wally – January 6, 2018 at 9:24 pm
“Yup”, just like the horrendous (US) State and Federal “sales tax” on cigarettes.
Cigarette taxes are the greatest ever “Cash Cow” with BILLION$ collected under the guise of funding healthcare for “smoking” related illnesses and “smoking prevention” publicity …… but less than 7% of the collected tax monies are expended for the aforenoted intended purpose.
it will go into landfill
Isn’t that the idea, to get it into landfills, not the landscape?
Tom in Florida : That is the crucial question. I see nothing wrong with taxing those cups – provided the consumers know where the money goes. Governments need to find as many legitimate ways of finding money as possible. That sort of consumer tax is just perfect. If people don’t like paying it they can avoid it by bringing their own mug from home..
Yet the store already pays numerous taxes, the consumer already pays a sales tax.
I’m always amazed by how business finds savings in volume production or services, but somehow, government doesn’t. In fact, the bigger government is, the less efficient is becomes. Taxpayers need to pay more for the same services. I don’t get it – and governments hope I will never question it.
They should burn those coffee cups for electricity. Throw them in with the wood pellets.
Absolutely. Incineration gets rid of garbage and generates electricity.
The greens think reuse, recycling, and reduction are the only way to go. However, as one wit put it, we may have passed peak recycling. 🙂 Governments may be forced to reconsider incineration as an alternative.
From Wikipedia:
“Most paper cups are designed for a single use and then disposal. Very little recycled paper is used to make paper cups because of contamination concerns and regulations. Since most paper cups are coated with plastic (polyethylene), then both composting and recycling of paper cups is uncommon because of the difficulty in separating the polyethylene in the recycling process of said cups. As of 2016, there are only two facilities in the UK able to properly recycle PE-coated cups; in the absence of such facilities, the cups are taken to landfill or incinerated.”
And that’s why recycling is not a solution.
A firm in New Zealand 30 years ago brought an obsolete coal power station Meremere with the object of burning most of Aucklands rubbish to generate electricity power station They refurbished it but could not gain consent
.Aucklands rubbish is transported to a massive landfill beside the Waikato river and Auckland takes increasing volumes of water from the river .
LarryD, they are missing the point that, the polyethylene will not survive in a garbage dump. There are simply too many hungry bacteria fostered by the nutrients lining the cups for them not to figure out how to break down the plastic. It is happening in many places and to many plastics.
Years ago, when formica was invented and became widely used, the prediction was that we would end up buried in refuse formica. However, within twenty years there were more than one fungi that loved to much on formica. Nature always finds a way to make carbon structures into a food source; it’s just too good to ignore.
“gwan January 6, 2018 at 8:17 pm
They refurbished it but could not gain consent…”
Yes, the restrictive environment court. The same court that allowed Masterton District Council to dump untreated sewage into rivers in the Wairarapa in the early 2000’s.
LarryD, they are already being recycled at one company in the UK, so you are wrong.
Volume is the problem, we are talking billions a year apparently.
What they should do is realize that the cure for everything is not a punitive tax of some kind. I love the threat of a ban if all cups are not recycled. Really? All? That’s never going to happen.
They should wonder why they have all this refuse and no one has figured out how to take advantage of it. It is clear that they could burn it all, along with the wood chips from the US.
Hopefully, in the future every urban area will burn it’s own waste for power in clean-burning plants next to their sewage processors, which will produce methane and burnable sludge.
All that’s necessary is the de-vilification of CO2. That will happen when the present misunderstanding of climate sensitivity to doublings of concentration is finally debunked and the benefits of increased atmospheric CO2 concentration become too remarkable to ignore anymore.
For the past month I’ve been heating my house largely with Amazon boxes in the fireplace.
They’re quite efficient, actually, for a renewable resource that has been arriving at my front porch with amazing regularity in the weeks before Christmas.
Ditto!
I was just writing about this:
Liberals, after all, spend a lifetime with people laughing behind their backs about the liberal arts degree that they hold, so they overcompensate. That is why they are so susceptible to grand quixotic ventures to “save the planet.” Only the genius of the liberal brain can understand that to save the world we must ban plastic water bottles and the production of CO2. They stew over all the styrofoam cups being discarded as they work at Starbucks as baristas.
https://co2islife.wordpress.com/
The ones clutching the bottled water are usually the ones who make the most noise about “saving the planet”.
They need to be hydrated because they’re so hot……..
Also the same ones driving $100,000 Teslas that are taxpayer subsidized.
Where the building the Tesla battery alone emits more CO2 than 7 seven years of driving a gasoline powered car.
Are there no incinerators anywhere able to make the most of the potential heat available from the “mountains” of these used coffee cups? All that potential free fuel?
Maybe they could power the much needed carbon sequestration machines I keep hearing about …….. /sarcastic.
How is such an innocuous item attracting so much attention?
Surely there is a grant available to some science charlatan bent on saving the planet to figure out a means to dispose/re use these things in some way without various countries parliaments getting their knickers in such a twist.
Thinking caps on, dear respected boffins.
Join it all together dear chaps, and ladies.
Earn your keep.
As I have said up post, they are already recycled, volume is the problem.
“Are there no incinerators anywhere able to make the most of the potential heat available from the “mountains” of these used coffee cups? All that potential free fuel? ”
Very few, when ever one is proposed the ‘Green Worriers’ come out in force screaming “CO2 / pollution / save the children” NIMBY crap…..& it gets turned down.
+1000
Plastic coffee cups? In the US, most disposable coffee cups are paper, not plastic. Some are styrofoam. In the illustration accompanying this post, most of what I see are plastic water and soft drink bottles. So what is the issue here? A small deposit on containers which can be returned to the point of purchase for a refund works splendidly in Michigan. You don’t see plastic or glass cans and bottles littering the streets, that is if they are carbonated beverages. It should be extended to non-carbonated also. But I guess, sigh, we have to pay the carbon tax.
I think you will find that while they are made if cardboard, it’s the plastic coating that is the “problem” as it is difficult to separate the recyclables. Maybe we follow Ethiopia’s lead and make drinking coffee a ceremony using a real fire, roast the beans right there in front of you, brew the coffee in a clay pot and drink from a china cup?
There’s also no evidence of any shadows, yet the car driving by has a nice black shadow underneath it.
Fake photo in my opinion.
Deposit does not go to government. Shown to work to reduce refuse.
Tax does. No evidence it reduces refuse.
You can figure out the rest.
Ronald P Ginzler
Methinks the illustration accompanying this post is entirely staged. Every bit of rubbish in the shot looks remarkably pristine, even the brown paper.
Photoshopped perhaps?
I agree. That pile of litter looks rather well arranged. If not Photoshopped, surely staged with clean-ish trash – we wouldn’t want the snowflake photographers to get their hands dirty. 😉
Sorry, my posts ended up the wrong way round.
It’s mainly just another London-bubble issue fueled by MPs talking too much to Greenpeas and the BBC, coupled with their success at banning free plastic bags from supermarkets. I don’t see any paper cups clogging the streets where I currently live ~70 minutes from London. If refuse collection in London is inadequate, I suggest they either employ some more people to pick them up, or encourage Londoners to be more careful about disposing of their empties.
In the same vein, the Capital’s great and good have also been hard at work recently worrying about the prevalence of too many of the wrong sort of beggars in the streets of Windsor in the run-up to the Royal Wedding thing.
michael hart
“too many of the wrong sort of beggars in the streets of Windsor”
MP’s!
I have been using my own container at Starbucks every day for the last 3 to 5 years. I get a 10 cent (CDN) discount.
Starbucks? yeah, but what about when you want coffee?
There are several different companies selling and promoting reusable and/or compostable beverage cups in the UK I have no problem with reusable but the compostable ones like their carrier bag equivalent are made of corn starch, so we’re meant to use food to make things to be thrown away which to me is wrong like burning food as “biofuel” as there are people going hungry but as others have said where does logic and compassion come into being green.
James Bull
James Bull
They had a government campaign in 1970’s UK, ‘don’t be a litter lout’.
TV commercials, posters etc. I was a kid at the time and it made a lasting impression on me, so much so I seethe when I see tossers, tossing crap out their car windows. They are invariably a generation or so younger than me and obviously missed the campaign.
What strikes me is that whilst there may not have been a short term gain in terms of results for the government, anyone of my generation feels now, much like me about litter.
Usual government screw up. No instant result so they abandoned a perfectly good, self regulating, voluntary, not taxed, environmentally friendly campaign.
hot scot
exactly right.
the problem is that global environmentalism seems to be taught in schools but not the local version, i.e don’t litter, don’t use graffiti.
we live near some shops and some primary schools. immediately after the schools turn out you can follow the trail of sweet wrappers from school to shops and onwards to their homes.
ten years later, because they have never been taught, they are the ones throwing their half eaten macdonalds meal-and I use the word advisedly-from their cars.
as for the coffee cups. yes tax them. there are some 2.5 billion used a year.
personally I think the takeaways ought to be forced to clean up the mess their customers make and fund dedicated litter patrols within a mile or so of their premises as well as fund the education of young people that is necessary. an appalling amount of cartons, cups, styrofoam, plastic lids etc are thrown away carelessly and our seaside environment down here suffers
tonyb.
Right-on Garymount. How much effort does it take to buy/collect five cloth grocery bags to take along and reuse, and to purchase a plastic/metal coffee travel mug to fill up with coffee/tea? I do it to reduce litter, not to save the planet. I also use doggie bags for the critters. And I pick up trash from those who are simply too damn lazy to look after themselves. My home is one block from a convenience store and has a bus stop next door- garbage dump heaven. It costs me nothing – and I shouldn’t be taxed for any of this mess! Some by-law enforcement would reduce laziness quickly. Make those responsible pay. There are a lot of seniors in the neighbourhood. We are the ones looking after this issue- not the snowflakes.
R2Dtoo
The problem with by-law enforcement is there has to be someone to enforce the law, and the problem with that is, they can’t be everywhere at once.
Just teach kids that littering is unacceptable. As climatereason pointed out, the green blob is very quick to teach the kids all about the global problems of litter, but if no one dropped it in the first place, half the problem would be solved.
At least pollution (unlike the much-hyped nonsense we know as “climate change”) is a real problem; and a plastic cup tax makes infinitely more sense than a “carbon tax”. But I have to wonder if it will be merely a deterrent, or if the government (yah, right!) will actually do something appropriate and effective with their new-found money.
this will probably be just another case of government just rearranging a problem instead of fixing it and finding a way to clip your ticket along the way.
South Africa has a tax on single-use plastic supermarket bags (paid by the manufacturer). This WAS supposed to fund recycling plants. Guess what? The money just went into the fiscus, where politicians can spend it on their annual new SUV…
It is NOT paid by “the manufacturers”. The tax is “collected” by the manufacturers. Quoting Ronaldus Maximus.
Good point, F. Leghorn. Gotta love Reagan.
Starbucks (Not that I am, or was, a regular drinker of their product) make some really nice steel, thermal, mugs with a rubber sealed lid and rubber handle. I think mine cost about NZ$25 and I have had it nearly 20 years. It’s mostly used for cold drinks these days.
https://www.google.com.au/search?ei=uItRWqPzJ8zM8wXkkZMI&q=starbucks+stainless+steel+coffee+cups&oq=starbucks+steel+cups&gs_l=psy-ab.3.2.0j0i8i30k1l3.2539.4726.0.9967.10.10.0.0.0.0.523.1688.2-3j0j1j1.5.0.crnk_dmh…0…1.1.64.psy-ab..6.2.964…0i13k1j0i8i13i30k1.0.3-NU5nyjCOo
Disposable coffee cups have been targeted here in Aus for years and it’s possible the UK MP is just trying to be trendy and playing “Me too” catchup politics.
This article, from a local front-yard newspaper, illustrates how hard it is to move obvously good recycling ideas forward:
There is a fear that CFCs and Halons residing in the stratosphere has led to a thinning of the ozone layer. As a result, a senior Member of the U.S. House of Representatives has introduced a bill to force harmless recycling of remaining CFCs and Halons.
The bill would require the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to use only surplus CFCs and Halons in its weather balloons. This would capitalize upon the gases’ ability to reach the stratosphere and reside there while at the same time the ozone would be shielded by the balloons’ fabric. The plan would thus make use of waste gases while conserving valuable helium.
A rider to the bill would impose a similar requirement on civilian commercial users of blimps. However, the blimp lobby in Washington D.C. (led by Goodyear) has protested, stating that its constituents have no need or intention to send blimps to the stratosphere.
The bill’s sponser has proposed a compromise in which blimp operators would be allowed a special tax credit to allow design, manfacture, and installation of ballast systems to offset the inability to use helium, and thus keep the blimps at normal altitudes.
The bill has recently stalled due to arguments over whether or not lead and/or spent uranium should be allowed in the ballasts. Apparently at least congressman has had negative experiences with lead balloons, and is worried that similar issues could carry over to blimps. However, this impasse is expected to end soon and the bill brought to the floor.
This will go over like a lead zeppelin
[it had to be said]
You DO know that the Mythbusters (TM) team actually made a lead balloon, don’t you?
Russ Wood on January 7, 2018 at 4:02 am
You DO know that the Mythbusters (TM) team actually made a lead balloon, don’t you?
They also made a miniature Hindenburg. That demonstration worked even better. It was definitely a lead balloon.
the base is methane, CH4. C=12, H = 1, total 16. Air is approx 80% N2 = 28, plus 20% O2 = 16, average 28.8. So a methane filled balloon will float and rise in the atmosphere.
CFC = Chlorofluorocarbon = eg, dichlorodifluorocarbon, = freon 12. 2 x Cl = 2 x 35.45 = 71. 2 x F = 2 x 19 = 38, 1 x c = 1 x 12 = 12. Total 121. Average = 24.2. Will just float and rise, but payload will be negligible. Compared with a helium filled balloon, with a figure of 4, it would be financially unviable (except to a government department, wanting to get rid of balloon skins!)
The image is ironic. A bin for newspapers and magazines only, with a pile of plastic on the floor below. I would not be surprised if there was a fine for someone trying to dispose of a plastic item in the bin. One reason many bins have been removed from London streets is as a direct result of IRA terror bombings of the 80’s, which were placed in waste bins.
At least they didn’t put the bombs in the toilets ala Lethal Weapon 2.
Nobody expects a bomb in the toilet.
You haven’t eaten in Bombay.
They would be better off just having a trash bin and collecting it all for incineration. Unfortunately waste management has become an integral part of the green religion and we spend billions doing the ‘right’ thing according to these religious dictates, with minimal environmental benefit.
Incinration does not go down well with the UK public, because of the exhaust gases containing toxins.
They have to be tightly controlled and yes the Greens got them a bad name.
Greens spoil every working method and want to replace it something awfully complex.
Hey it beats trying to save the planet with bad science and carbon taxes globally.
“Why are we here? – Plastic” The world needs plastic – George Carlin video, good one if you haven’t seen it:
This is just grasping and grandstanding by MPs who should be paying attention to other rather more important stuff going on – the Environmental Audit Committee is an utter disgrace – rammed with a procession NGOs and activists – many of whom receive state funds to lobby government – which is actually illegal… not that that actually bothers the dimwits on the committee.
AIUI the last UK company running a bottle deposit scheme had trouble getting it to work
I deeply resent the endless prod nosing by campaigners keen to exercise power over their fellow citizens by fair means or foul and generally dipping the victims wallets in the process.
The drinks industry is getting a lot of busybody flak at the moment in all sorts of areas – plastic pollution , sugar, alcohol, plain packaging, tax evasion….. – the menagerie of busybody antics is extensive..
The ghastly creep that is the BBC’s Roger Harrabin slimes his way around it all making sly insinuations and offering his (tax payer funded) platform available to useful politicians willing to promote his causes.
It is … what you ‘Merkans I believe call a “crock”.
ps I see the logic of a scheme – but why not extend it to cover all garbage and set up co-ops where the collectors directly benefit from the resale of recycled items… ? That wouldn’t do of course – since the grossly overpriced *cartel* of rubbish handlers in the UK would be up in arms….
Our local site already does, for still usable products.
They benefit local Charities.
“In response, Starbucks said it would try out a 5p cup charge in 20 to 25 central London outlets.”
Ha ha. What heroes. They’re going to help out by pocketing an extra nickel per cup. Not enough to make any difference to 99.9% of their customers’ behavior but does marginally add to their profits.
I don’t think I would ever buy anything at Starbucks. Too expensive for what you get. I get coffee Americana at OXXO in Mexico and it costs 18 pesos – $0.94 cents..but I usually make my own coffee for cheaper…
If the proposed tax is rejected, the headline should read:
“Not So, Latte Dough!”
Interesting photo, from what I see 1 coffee cup, the rest mostly plastic water containers.
The truth is that refunds on recyclable materials are not to promote recycling in America. They are to promote cleanliness. We pay to keep our streets clean and not to recycle material. Look at the math and economics. It’s just too expensive to pick up and sort packaging and gain a decent profit from recycling so we charge the product users for “recycling”.
How is a plastic cup “pollution?”
Matter is not created or destroyed.
Someone took some matter from the ground, applied some processes to it, with energy taken from the same ground, and transformed it from one style of matter to another.
Where’s the harm? Was heat used, and a toxic fume was in the smoke? Does the new product radiate and cause cancer? Were’s the harm in a bit of matter being transformed from one configuration to another?
The best answer might be: it took energy, and that energy throws CO2 in the atmosphere, sending us to DOOM. Maybe.
Folks, a piece of paper along the side of the road may be unsightly, but we have to be clear what we mean by “pollution.” That piece of paper may have come from a branch of a tree right there, and it has ended up right where it started. What’s the Big Diff?
if you lived by the sea as I do you would not be dismissing plastic cup pollution.
there are hundreds of plastic items washed up along every yard of the shore each year. I spend a lot of time collecting it. some is local some comes from ships.
google ‘penzance, britains first plastic free town’ and you will begin to understand the extent of the problem.
tony
ClimateReason: Exactly. So, the problem is not that we are using too many coffee cups; the problem is that coffee cups are getting in the waterways. And how is that a problem? I would guess they are a problem when they get sucked into water intakes on boat engines, etc.
But that is not what the Guilt Mongers are hawking.
Another way to look at this: the Marxist Guilt Mongers are against the Nukelar Family, since the Nukelar Family is one of the bedrock institutions of our prevailing society. They have many strategies to weaken the Nukelar Family. One is to create a divide between me and my kids. The “Pollution” gambit is a major way to do this. My kid learns all about how we are “hurting” Mother Earth by being “wasteful” with water. My kid comes home, and sees me running the water while I brush my teeth, or cook. My kid tells me to turn the water off, since we should not be wasteful.
I ask my kid, “where does this water go?” He says, “down the drain.” I ask: “where does it go, then?” Now, mind you, he has LEARNED ALL OF THIS IN SCHOOL. He says: “to the water treatment plant.” I ask, then where does it go?” He says, “to the river.” I ask, “then where does it go? He says “to the ocean.” I ask, “then, where does it go?” He says,” it evaporates into the clouds.” I ask, “where does it go, then?” He says, “It rains on the ground when the clouds come back over the land.” I ask “where does it then go? He says, “to the lake.” I ask, “where does it go then?” He says, “to the water treatment plant for our water supply.” I ask, “where does it go then?” He says, “in the pipes to come to our house.” I ask, “where does it go then?” He says, “it comes out the pipe when you turn the handle.”
I say, “OK, where did the water get wasted?”
I ask,”Is water leaving the planet?” He says no.
He decides, based on what they have taught him, that I am not hurting Mother Gaia.
However, now I have to explain to this kid of tender age that anti-Americans have gotten into positions to destroy the family by putting a divide between him and me.
This is what the Communists want: kids who see their parents as immoral for polluting, for not eating low-fat, for wasting water, and so on. Before they even get to “Gender Studies” in college, their mind has already been poisoned, and poisoned against me.
As well as against God.
Look: toxic chemicals and nukelar waste can render land uninhabitable. We need to protect our water supply. But a coffee cup is only a problem when it goes where it is not supposed to, and damages someone’s inboard motor, or some such.
They can’t do that, environmental taxes are only for the peasants.
Why pick on coffee cups or any particular manufactured item? After all you could scrap all forms of taxation, most notably income tax and rely completely on resource taxing but somehow I don’t think that’s what our concerned movers and shakers had in mind.
Oh, but plastic and paper are so cheap! You need more expensive cups, so that people feel the pain! It is important to feel the pain on consumption! Greens don’t measure consumption in monetary units, or mass, but litres and pieces. Cheap cups make them mad.
Plastic cups for a latte? In all the USA you can’t get coffee in plastic cups – it comes in industrial weight paper cups, which probably hurt the environment much more. Are the people in England so poor they can’t use paper? And I can’t imagine a store allowing Custer home cups for hot beverages – seems like significant sanitary issues there.
Plastic coated paper cups.