You want lies with that?

Is there a bug in your bin?

Yet another example of the box-ticking, target-meeting, bonus-generating process over real result culture we are spiraling down through daily. And I am an ardent environmental campaigner (though more in the areas of reuse and repair, which don't seem to 'inspire' some LAs and massively funded/rewarded quangos and their hands-length (when necessary) masters in Whitehall.... 'who cares if it's making things worse, we have an EU limit and will a) get fined if we miss and b) get lots of goodies if we exceed it! Result!

If it is about what we throw away, which may represent a modicum of opportunity, how in the name of anything is a microchip going to help unless it actually reads something like an RFID on every discarded item, and then traces it accurately to how sold it, bought it and then disposed of it.

As noted, all this might do is weigh the thing, regardless of any other aspects. As Al Hamilton suggests, it is ridiculously easy to skew, though by his suggestion, at best the LAs get their bonuses early, or at worst the householder gets slapped with a massive bill. Whichever way, my kids' futures on this planet are not served by trucks lugging more weight to make a flunky look good to his/her legions of equally unproductive bosses.

'Tonnage, tonnage. My kingdom for more tonnage!'

Addendum

There can, of course, be positives..

But in the spirit of enviROI I'd be fascinated to find out more about the realities surrounding such figures, especially the VAST comms budgets used to drive such figures, and how that money could have been used on tangibles (like coordinating a national system, as opposed to the woeful , contradictory, motley collection we have now) rather than 'awareness' leading to compliance on the part of the public doing work to drive the bonuses of the ever-duplicated boards approving these expenditures to get the public working to boost their salaries.

Almost a conflict of interest, IMHO. That said, in a culture where public servants get bonuses for doing their jobs, well or (insert headline on almost any topic from last decade here] I guess anything is possible.

Times - NEW - Knock, knock: it’s the council bin snoops