In Reply to: re: re: re: re: re: re: charging for recycling posted by John on July 03, 2008 at 12:23:02:

Yes we should save money by going back to the way we used to be?

If you wanted to get rid of any rubbish you just threw it into a river or along the side of the road. WE piled millions of tonnes of rubbish into holes in the ground Easy and cheap?

We didn't have to pay for linings to stop it leaching into groundwater, no costs for treatment for the surface runoff, no rat control, birds spreading botulism around as they picked through the decay on top of the dump, no costs for control of smells wafting about, no costs for proper control of methane releases, regular fires on landfills that went on for days on end, etc.

It may have been cheap for someone to behave like this but it sure wasn't cheap when it came to cleaning it up and bearing the true costs of our dirty behaviour.