Irish Examiner - 30/01/06
‘Schoolyard solution’ to waste problem

I AGREE with Audrey Hogan who is angry that the junior minister for the environment intends to act against the 25% of households not availing of an authorised waste collection service (Irish Examiner letters, January 20).

We have a Government with no imagination, determined to sweep our waste problems under the incinerator. They cannot now believe no one took seriously their expensive publicity campaigns to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’.

I agree there is a problem with illegal dumping and rubbish burning, but I am sick of the usual Irish ‘schoolyard solution’ of collective punishment.

Through recycling I only need to make a couple of trips to landfill a year. It’s labour intensive, but I get a satisfaction both from being green and saving money. Now, despite this, the junior minister sees fit to try to extract money somehow. When paramilitaries or criminals do it, it’s called extortion. When the Government do it, it’s called taxation.

Nick Folley
36 Ardcarrig
Carrigaline
Co Cork