Slashdot Mirror
Your Garbage Can Could Be Spying On You
macs4all writes "Garbage cans all over England are under surveillance tonight. And not by sleepy, fallible humans. This article in Live Science claims that at least 500,000 'wheelie bins' are now using RFID technology." Though that doesn't sound very dire, the article points out the ease with which your consumer spending habits could be tracked. "Although this is frankly a story that is difficult to take seriously, please note the following. You should remember that many of the articles you buy (and sooner or later throw away) are now also equipped with passive RFID tags that detail the item's brand name and product name. If it's possible to scan the tag on the trash can with an ID, it's possible to use similar equipment to quickly scan your can to uncover your purchasing habits."
So now we have to microwave our garbage aswell?
While the paranoïac among you see this as a potential invasion of privacy, I see this as an easy way for the city to have me pay taxes only on what I put in the bin.
The process is simple. The trucks come over, put the container on a scale, scan the RFID automagically, empty the bin, voila. If it's empty, I don't pay. /kg
The net result for me is that I get to pay:
32 € per year
+11 € for the container rent per year.
+1.60 € for each time my bin is not empty
+0.16 €
Which is way less than I used to pay before.
Plus, I get to dispose of my glass stuff in containers accessible all around the city for free.
I get to dispose of my plastic and metallic (soda cans, tins, etc.) in special bags for free.
I get to dispose of 3 cubic meters (106 cubic feet) of other stuff (grass, leaves, dirt, sofa, planks, etc.) for free
The RFID on my trashbins are thus an easy way for the city to make those who dispose of more stuff pay more, which is as it should be.
I have yet to see the trash guys peek inside my stuff...
Cool system IMO...
One shall speak only if what one has to say is more beautiful than silence
Both.
Municipal services (such as domestic rubbish collection, street lights, road maintenance, planning permission) and social housing are all handled by departments within the council. Funding comes from a number of sources, but ultimately it's 90% tax in some form. (You do have to pay rent on council housing)
The purpose of the tags is probably not to investigate buying habits. More likely, it will be combined with weighing equipment on the lorries which take the rubbish away to find out who's throwing out how much. Ostensibly this is to ensure that everyone is using the various recycling schemes properly, though I wouldn't be surprised if it culminates with being charged by weight for the amount of waste produced.
Parents with young children (how exactly do you recycle a nappy/diaper?), those without transport (not all councils take all recyclable material; some won't even take glass) will probably be the most affected by this - and, as you say, most people who fall into both brackets are poorer and so will be screwed harder.
"UK is a small crowded place, that's running out of landfill sites rapidly."
Only about 8% of British land is built on, and there are vast areas that could be used for landfills.
Instead, we end up with piles of 'recyclables' that no-one wants, and have to pay to ship them to the Third World so they'll dump them for us. Recycling in the UK is a huge scam, and this is just another way for councils to charge more for doing less.
Your garden is not built on. Would you like a landfill site there?
(a) Landfills have to be kept carefully away from other areas due to pollution and other concerns, so they have a much greater footprint than space they occupy themselves.
(b) Landfills have to be located reasonably near where the garbage is produced. They have to be geographically stable areas. And so on. Many of the places not built on are places that are not built on for a reason, and should not be landfill sites for the same reason.
(c) Just because land is not built on does not mean that nobody cares about what goes on it. If YOU aren't happy to have a landfill near your home or place of work, what right do you have to ask Farmer Bob, or Park Manager Sue, or whatever to have a landfill anywhere near them?
One might, but in the UK, councils began charging businesses for the depositing of commercial waste in land-fill sites, a few years ago.
The result has been an explosion in the cases of fly-tipping: innocent land-owners - those who own a piece of open land - and it can be anything from a building site to grassland to a carpark - have refuse tipped on their land, and then face a huge bill to clear up the rubbish. If the landowner fails to clear it up, the council can, and does, apply a court order forcing them to clear it up, at their own cost - and if they fail to do so, the council will clear it up themselves and send the land-owner the bill!
In some cases, fly-tipping will even occur on land that is supposedly secure - fenced off - and the fly-tippers will even cut through padlocks to open gates to land where they can offload their waste.
The reason for this is that it's very lucrative to the fly-tippers - who undercut the council's charges (and don't generally care about the exact nature of the rubbish - hazardous chemicals, medical waste, etc.) and very good business sense for the businesses who use fly-tippers.
Charging people for the disposal of waste discourages them from using the service and leads people to seek other cheaper or no-cost ways of ridding themselves of their rubbish.
If the scheme outlined in the news-story is implemented, domestic waste will join the massive problem that commercial waste fly-tipping is causing here in the UK. Neighbour's bins will be used, public areas, parks, skips, anything to get out of paying.
The solution? For commercial waste - slap a blanket charge on every business that is likely to use the service that they pay along with their rates/taxes, and can't get out of - it becomes pointless for them to avoid using the official land-fill. For residential waste - stick with the system we have now - a service charge via the grossly unfair and unjust council tax.
-Blue
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
-b.