A change in behaviour

We have written at great length and in some depth about the growing shambles created by the EU's waste strategy. Our first piece was written in June 2004, not long after this blog had started, and we can count 50 more since.

There is thus very little more we can say, by way of comment, about yesterday's announcement by environment secretary David Miliband, on the government's waste strategy for England.

We can however, note that, in the torrent of media reports covering the event, one fundamental dishonesty shone through. Almost without exception, the media – typified by The Times - describes Miliband's initiative in terms of the government's plan to "wean England off its landfills".

It is, of course, no such thing. It is the government's strategy to increase the level of compliance with the EU's landfill directive, a desperate push, on the one hand, to reduce the huge fines which Britain will have to face and, on the other, a stratagem to transfer the massively increased costs of refuse collection and disposal from central government and local councils to individual households.

Therein lies another fundamental dishonesty for, while Miliband stokes up enthusiasm for his "new" strategy, nowhere does he mention that the additional costs we must all bear for this EU-driven madness is in the region of £8 billion a year, on top of at least £10 billion infrastructure costs to build recycling centres, anaerobic digesters and all the rest.

But what really sticks in the craw is this sanctimonious, ignorant, fatuous little individual blithely telling us that it was "time for everyone to change their behaviour…". One is almost tempted to do just that, but the result would be an extremely long term in prison.

However, if this half-man thinks the EU Referendum household is going to collect up waste food at his (or the EU's) behest, he is certainly going to see a very significant change of behaviour, but one which, I suspect, is not at all in line with his strategy.

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