Bin Tax Campaign going too far

by fleetwood mac - casc Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:20

what a sop.

by No to Double Tax Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:28

It's quite likely if the campaign organised community dumping of rubbish, the council would step in and say they do not have a license for handling waste and promptly fine or imprison those who organised it.

by anti bin taxer Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:34

Firstly annoyed, a mircrowave and a fridge would not end up in a wheelie bin or on a weekly collection in anyhow, so first and foremost this is nothing whatsoever to do with teh anti bin tax campaign. What it is to do with is the significant problem of dumping in this country.

The dumping of black bags are a different thing altogether. People are double wrapping thier rubbish and placing their rubbish back on Council controlled land, for instance roundabouts, by doing this, they are placing the responsibility for waste collection firmly back at the Councils feet. There should not be paper etc.. in these bags, that is genuinely unfortunate, most people I knwo in the campaign recycle up to 70% of their rubbish, i've actually been taken aback by teh extent of recycling carried out by people wiht perhaps big families and very little time.

We need to stay focussed here, the council and indeed the government, are trying to beat us into submission on this issue. this is not an easy campaign it is complicated and yes it is dirty. but I feel residents in an organised fashion, dumping thier rubbish, is okay.

what do others think??

by Canteen Kevin Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:39

You never "used to think protest was fair enough...etc" - you fking liar, your crude smear is pathetic ("What did the environment ever do to you?") . Reports of illegal dumps are suddenly linked to the anti-bin tax campaign. I have news for you mate, there have been and will be plenty of illegal dumps in this country that have nothing to do with the campaign.

"when people are given responsibility for themselves they go and piss over themselves" - needs no comment, except you are a total c**t.

by Badman Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:51

When the council doesn't collect your rubbish for a month? Leave the bags lying around the house for the kids to catch dysentry from?

There is a simple solution - resume all collection, and with the new-found consciousness of matters relating to waste, we could find that many of the problems of illegal dumping and recycling have improved considerably.

by RTE Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:52

Annoyed is listening to too much Marianne Finnucane!

by David Tue Oct 07, 2003 11:56

the media is being allowed to make the link between illegal dumping and the bin tax xcampaign and this is very damaging to the campaign. I heard that piece this morning. there were people claiming that only 3% of dublin citizens had not paid their charges. this went unchallenged.

It should be made very clear by the percieved leaders of this campaign that the ordinary people of Dublin are not dumping rubbish irresponsibly and that anybody who does so should be whole heartedly condenmed

by Jolly Green Giant Tue Oct 07, 2003 12:11

Dump your refuse in the gardens of Gangarene Party members.

by binned Tue Oct 07, 2003 14:39

were seeing more and more sniping and backtracking by the anti-bin tax people. You may be realising that your concepts of double taxation are completely false and that the privatisation of the service is actually coming about because of your refusal to pay for your public services.

on repeat. in 77 fianna fail used the abolistion of waste charges as a way to scam people into winning an election. They thus created a climate of dimished public responsibility towards waste management. Now the amount of tax that was set in 77 was working on figure of cost that are about a tenth of what the costs are now. The local authorities got most of their funding from capital sources and the incresing costs are being leeched from areas such as health and education. The govt./local authorities will have to shed responsibility of waste to a private company because they cant afford to pay because their source of income i.e. YOU AND YOUR TAXES isnt enough because people either refuse to pay or pay to little. This bullshit policy of FF has led to the climate of public irresponsibility, 97% of waste landfilled, no facilities to treat our toxic waste etc. and you so called socialists are perpetuating this climate or irresponsibility. You let your political 'judgements' cloud you from the real facts of the issue. end of story

by Chekov Tue Oct 07, 2003 14:56

Coz your comment reads like a stoned ramble. Firstly the campaign is actually more united than ever and, far from crumbling, is getting stronger all the time with more ambitious actions.

Secondly, your argument about privatisation makes no sense. Who's going to buy a bin service that people don't have to pay for? Every single local authority privatisation that has occurred to date has been preceded by the enforcement of the bin-tax through non-collection. I suppose that facts and elementary logic don't really fit into your worldview though.

by iosaf Tue Oct 07, 2003 14:56

we see nasty other campaigns begin from the Gov. side.

by binned Tue Oct 07, 2003 15:28

its basic economics - stuff you learn in the leaving cert - If the government or local authorities cant pay for the running of services because the primary sources of income to run those services (i.e. tax) isnt there they have to shed responsibility for those services i.e. privatisation. now it is a fact that the cost of waste management has increased 8-10 fold since the levels set in 1977 (you cant deny that) and we havent seen a matched increase in tax being paid by the public. The money is being leeched from other valuable public services and the most needy in society. You cant deny the fact that our european neighbours pay more and thus have better services. Now if you cant deny the fact that the cost has increased where do you propose the money should come from. Tax the rich(companies) I hear you say -- well if that follows through then we will end up paying more for our products and services and we wont be able to see the exact figure we are paying like we see the figure on our bin-tax form. So does it not make sense to pay your fair share of waste charges and not have the spill-over loaded onto the public consumer. This is all basic stuff.

by Yossarian Tue Oct 07, 2003 16:46

Yup, it is basic. Check this out:
If the local authorities can't afford to pay for the services because they are not able to collect the flat rate unfair tax they want to pay for it who the fuck is going to pay a privatised service?
Also:
A 1% levy was added to PAYE taxes to pay for local authority services. Now, how can the cost of those services now be ten times more than the revenue when our wages have been increasing to beat the band by all [media/business] accounts? Are you seriously suggesting that the cost of waste collection is increasing ten times faster than wages?
Binned, go back and check out your leaving certificate maths and come back with some real figures as opposed to imaginary figures plucked out of the air if you want to make a decent arguement (I reckon that's far from your plan).

by blocker Tue Oct 07, 2003 17:08

It is the council that are leaving bin uncollected. Whether or not there were protests at bin trucks there would be illegal dumping. This is the councils problem, they caused it, blame them.

In most parts of Fingal the campaing are actually organising the collection of rubbish by loading it into the trucks themselves. It is only in the worlking class estates with 99.9% non payment that the council are not going into that dumping is occuring.

by binned Tue Oct 07, 2003 17:55

in 2003 the expenditure for waste disposal in the Dublin City Council region was €71,824,036 and the budgeted figure of income was €30,350,440. In 2002 expenditure was €67,597,514 and income was €22,763,864. I dont have the exact figure for 77 in front of me but I can get it later and we can do the maths together - but you should get the picture from the chanes of one year. You can get these figure from dublincity.ie. But its very clear that the council are in the economic red. I presume if a private company takes over they will shield the costs by introducing properly integrated systems of repatriation and reintegration of the waste into production cycles as a means of revenue generation. Simple logic to properly managed waste.

Now the level of taxation revenue clearly doesnt go any where near to covering the costs of waste mamagement and this is only the dublin area. You have to get it out of your heads that waste management is as simple as picking up bags from houses and dumping them in holes in the ground and forgetting about them. Ill give you another example. We have to export most of our toxic waste which includes paints, batteries etc but the european countries who have been taking our wastes are no longer going to do that. How can we afford to develop a proper toxic waste treatment system without tax-payers who proiduce SOME of the waste shouldering SOME of the responsibility.

I blame FF for duping a gullible public into thinking that waste management is cheap. It has left us with the mess we are in now but you people are compounding the issue by letting your 'politics' cloud the reality of the situation.

by Matrix Tue Oct 07, 2003 18:44

well no prizes for guessing what binned got in his leaving cert economics exam. Your failure to comprehend the basic workings of capitalism only fails to astound because your illusions in private enterprize taks the biscuit in what has to be one of the most ridiculous statements ever made on indymedia. Please, oh please binned, please find for me a private contactor anywhere in Ireland - no -actually in Europe who would be willing to take over the bin collection service where, his trucks are going to be stopped every day, his charge boycotted, the prospect of industrial action, massive protests against non collection, and not to mention other nasty things that can happen to his private bin trucks. Sorry Binned, it would be financial suicide. Show me one capitalist who would take over bin collection in Dublin at the moment. It would be wiser to invest his hard earned profits in out door pub furniture and outside heaters.
In fairness now, if the charge was brought in and well established, where any campaign of boycott and blockade had been defeated - then it might be wise to get your oar in... But binned , we've made that point before-- the introduction of the bin tax is the first step to privatisation. You obviously pay the same attension to this issue as you did to your economics class in school. Me thinks its time to go back to school binned...... muppet!

by binned Tue Oct 07, 2003 19:02

Oxigen are a private company and they generate a portion of their income from selling recycled waste back to companies who use that waste in packaging production.

You see, you say you will continue boycotting and not paying and building up this great resistence to some 'capitalist' ghost threat but you still dont face up to the reality of the situation. If we keep going your way where will we end up. The local authority cant afford to manage the waste, no private company will be able to operate because you threaten their business and still you refuse to pay your fair share for civic services. Sounds like the kind idiotic mis-management and 'head-in-the-sand' policies that destroyed places like Russia.

You see if you allow the system to operate properly it could develop to the equitable state of a balanced polluter pays policy but the fact of the matter is that there is a crisis that needs to be dealt with before anyone can streamline the system. But your stance wont allow that to happen and the crisis is just getting bigger and bigger all the time.

You say show me one capitalist who would take over the system, maybe so, but can you provide a concise and workable alternative solution to the crisis that is ACTUALLY happening.

by binned Tue Oct 07, 2003 19:14

you talk about massive opposition but a large portion of people do pay their charges and people around the country pay far higher charges for collection. Many people around the country are very pissed off because thay see people like you moaning and refusing to pay a fair share into the system. They are left burdening and shouldering the cost of YOUR greed.

You can call me muppet or whatever but until you start making some actual sense on how to deal with the situation I will continue to think you are wrong and irresponsible.

by Yossarian Tue Oct 07, 2003 19:40

I hope nobody is paying binned to leave his rubbish uincollected here 'cause he's bad value for money.
First of all the cost of collection has apparently dropped to 2.3 times "income" as opposed to ten times as s/he stated earlier. Is this income from bin taxes only or does it include the proportion of our tax take that was allocated for services many years ago? I suspect the latter. So we don't have any real figures to work with yet, unless someone can figure out 1% of the PAYE tax take and disaggregate this out over all the services the local authorities provide (in accordance to their cost) and then add to the waste collection/disposal proportion of that, the amount recouped from businesses.

Why, binned, can the local authorities not "shield the costs" in the same way as a private company? Simple logic indeed.

Tax payers do not, for the most part, produce the waste. Industry produces waste. If companies were charged for the future disposal of their goods and packaging they might put a bit of effort into reducing these costs. (Unfortunatley, this is still a bit regressive because they would increase the price of their goods which would again hit the poorest disproportionaly although these costs would reduce with the packaging).

It may be political to state that I don't think that the poorest should shoulder the highest burden for waste disposal. I don't think so but whatever, it sounds reasonable to me.

The local authority could easily figure out a way to spread the costs of waste disposal amongst those who_produce_the waste and even amongst those who_consume_packaged goods in an equitable manner. They don't because they don't want rich people getting onto them that they have to pay more than Joe down the road even though they earn twice as much.

At last some words from binner that make sense: "develop to the equitable state of a balanced polluter pays policy". However binned needs his head examined if he thinks that "leaving the system to operate properly" will achieve anything but the opposite. Wake up dude(ss), look around you, the system is operating exactly as it is designed to. DO YOU SEE ANY FUCKING EQUALITY!!!

by Yossarian Tue Oct 07, 2003 19:48

If, between businesses and householders, the total income is 30 million yo-yo's of which the household contribution is a bit over(?) half, say 16 million yo-yo's, then presuming all the business are coughing up, the balance of the cost (70-30), 40 millionish is to be made up by bin taxes. By this analysis only 40% (15/40) of people in the whole Dublin area are paying their charges. That'd be roughly over 600,000 people not paying bin charges. Sounds like a lot of people to me.

by binned Tue Oct 07, 2003 20:35

"Why, binned, can the local authorities not "shield the costs" in the same way as a private company? Simple logic indeed.
"

now we are starting to get somewhere. You are beginning to start thinking about possibilities for solutions and directions to take. your heads may be coming out of the sand. I dont agree with FF or the way they have brought us to this crisis and the ham-fisted way they have shifted a level tax on the people (although they did provide a waiver for those who couldnt afford it). This is in the same way I dont agree with the majority of the anti-bin tax people who refuse to consider the need to pay more or need for actual solutions to a waste problem. Remember at the end of the day its a problem of waste and not socio-economic posturing for political gain - which is all i see from the SW etc.

Do you think if we are to follow most of the anti-bin tax people's agendas we will ever get to develop a system of equitable payment that takes into account the amount of waste a household produces in relation to the net income of the house.

If the system is properly integrated the waste a household produces is effectively currency. This will further reduce the portion of taxation on the household because those reclaiming the waste get to sell it on to producers of packaging which we in turn buy of them when we go shopping. (simplistic version of the system but you see where it is going) but the fact of the matter is there isnt enough money to bring this into being. We have to come up with valid solutions and stomping our feet and shouting 'No way we wont pay' is exactly constructive or pro-active now is it.

by john mc dermott - none Wed Oct 08, 2003 00:16 jmcd33 at eircom dot net 56 martin savage pk ashtown dublin 15 8680717

This is an unjust form of taxation. The nitty gritty of waste disposal is your elected reps. domain.getting rid of this type of tax is ours.Stay focused.One thing at a time.
John McDermott

by binned Wed Oct 08, 2003 00:35

ignore the real issue at hand and maintain 'our' political objectives at any cost.

by Dade Zerp Wed Oct 08, 2003 12:04

Binned, the bin tax is just another poker up the ass of the working class which will lead to more of the motherfucking whore taxes which fall like axes on the masses so the political rats can help the fat cats, cut their corporation tax, cut their income tax, cut their amnesty slack, them are the facts. Fuck it. Do or die, now or never. Resist to exist.

by Pax Wed Oct 08, 2003 13:51

Your're either naive or purposely naive (and I fear the latter) in your belief that a privatised public utility will end up being cheaper, than paying for this out of taxes. Example after example here and abroad has shown that when a public utility has been let over to the free market charges go up ( and not as former PD now FF Minister Cullen says go up "to what the market can bear" ). You also seem to want this punitive tax, with no account of ability to pay, on the municipal waste sector, which accounts for only 2% of overall waste.
You said
"How can we afford to develop a proper toxic waste treatment system without tax-payers who proiduce SOME of the waste shouldering SOME of the responsibility."
and
"Oxigen are a private company and they generate a portion of their income from selling recycled waste back to companies who use that waste in packaging production. "

Either your being taken hostage by the arguments appealing to your green sensiblities or your for privitised bin collection, recycling and even incineration or maybe you work for Oxigen!

by Joe Wed Oct 08, 2003 14:06

I think binned is asking the wrong question but he's also missing the point on the taxation issue

Back in the 70's a 1% tax hike accompanied the abolition of local taxation. Of course dispoal costs have gone up since but that is NOT the cause of the shortfall in local revenue, after all wages (and employment) have also shot up.

The cause of the shortfall is that for a number of years the government have been taking the 1% but passing a lot less then 1% to the local councils. If they were getting the 1% there would be NO shortfall at current levels of expenditure.

[The right question binned is not do local services need to be paid for but rather who pays for them. The bin tax is designed to make sure that it is the low paid in particular who carry the burden, see http://struggle.ws/wsm/ws/2003/ws77/cover.html for a detailed explanation of how this is the case ]

by Confused Wed Oct 08, 2003 19:55

I don't see the relevance of this 1% being added to 'PAYE' in the 1970s. If it was added back then, it's surely been removed many times over by Champagne Charlie and his low-tax ideologues.

I thought the 1% was added to VAT, which hasn't stayed at the same level either.

To my mind, any argument that says 'our taxes went up in the 70s to pay for services' is really following the same logic as Bertie when he says that we can't complain about service charges because our taxes are so low now compared to the 1970s and 80s.

If service charges are to be abolished, it's clear that other taxes will have to go up (preferably for those on the higher bands of course). There's no point in pretending that the money is there because of some tax rise way back in the 1970s.

by binned Wed Oct 08, 2003 20:34

I dont really want to see the privatisation of the waste service. I want to see an equitable waste service with greater public responsibility and control. In fact i was pointing out that under the current climate it is the actions of the anti-bin tax lobby that are forcing it in the direction of privatisation. I get the faint whiff of people saying it should be bundled under the guise of general taxation - inequitable and unworkable. As I said before I have friends who live outside the city and have to pay €400 euro or more for waste collection and the idea of their taxes being increased to shoulder your greed is abhorrent.

This concept of 'oh tax the rich etc.' is so weak in practice its laughable. If you are to proportionate the tax dependant on wealth youll have to have benchmarks as to the measurement of 'wealth' and have safeguards to ensure that the higher bracket increase doesnt trickle and shaft the less well off even more. Silly situations like what we have now could arise - what if the 'rich' revolt and refuse to pay etc.

Personally I have objection to people regardless of their income who think they can produce as much garbage as they like and not shoulder the cost or take responsibility when I (who isnt well off) ensure I produce little waste and still have to pay the same amount.

Your still basing your taxation figures on proportional rates etc set a long long time ago. We are in a different situation regards the actual costs.

And when you bring it down whats the actual costs - for some less than a euro a day or something - not much for good waste management. I wonder if you diverted the cost from producing that huge amount of your promotional leaflets etc. how many less well of peoples bin-tax could you have paid..

I still find it a little ironic that you so called socialists want to perpetuate a mis-managed system that was introduce by FF as a ploy to win an election

by binned Wed Oct 08, 2003 21:01

i used to regard myself as a socialist but not anymore, Im in political limbo :)

by Joe Thu Oct 09, 2003 11:07

Err binned your 'friends outside the city' who currently pay 400 euro would obviously not be paying that 400 euro if the bin tax was abolished. So unless they are rich they would be paying less tax rather then more. But of course you know this already?

McCreevys tax cuts have been already sold to us as a substitute for wage increase under social partnership. This was a crap deal first time around, to try and sell them to us AGAIN as excusing the bin tax underestimates the intelligence of most workers. But then you probably think we are all thick!

Bottom line, the bin tax is part of the neo libveral plan to transfer taxation from the rich and corporations to workers.

by binned Thu Oct 09, 2003 18:12

what was a crapper deal was when your friends FF abolished domestic charges in 1977. Thats what has left us with one of the least developed waste management systems in europe. something your obviously happy with and would like to see remain or worsen.

you might want to drop the the 'neoelement when your liberalist economic policies if you are to make me believe your being accurate in anything you are saying.

by binned Thu Oct 09, 2003 18:39

what that should have said was -

the the 'neo' element when your discussing liberalist economic policies.

no, your not thick. unless you want to be.