Annex A
Policies anomalies which make it difficult
for Groups or individuals to implement effective environmental
programmes
WASTE AND
RECYCLING
There are variances as to how local authorities
treat school waste. Some local authorities categorise school waste
as being the same as commercial organisations. This means that
they are unwilling to provide recycling advice and/or services.
Churches in some areas cannot have their recycling
collected along with the doorstep scheme as they are also treated
as commercial organisations. They, therefore, have to organise
collections from private companies which discourages them from
recycling as they have to pay for it.
There are sometimes gross variations in facilities
and services between neighbouring local authorities and even within
a local authority. If you move neighbourhoods you often have to
change your "at home" habits and even have to check
with friends when you visit what you should/shouldn't put in the
bin.
TRAVEL
Many people pointed out the variances in the
way travel fuels are taxed making it relatively much cheaper to
travel by air than plane.
People felt that car travel had become relatively
cheaper than railways over the past decade. Government indicator
information suggests that this is the case.
The way that public transport pricing structures
have been created makes it harder or more expensive for people
to travel by public transport. For example, introducing pre-pay
Oyster cards in London that can't be used on all transport in
London, making it less convenient and more expensive to use some
train lines/stations.
Many people complained about the pricing systems
for the railways which they found both confusing. The high cost
of fares which are not pre-booked also prevented people from traveling
on the railways.
The deregulated bus services is also acting
as a deterrent for people to travel on the buses. People cited
lack of services on unpopular routes and too many buses on busy
routes that increased congestion.
ENERGY USE
We have received many complaints about lack
of consistencies within the planning system with regard to installing
micro-generation technologies. For example one business in Devon
was able to install a wind turbine and PV cells in an area of
outstanding natural beauty on Dartmoor. A near neighbour in a
different council was refused permission for a similar installation.
A common complaint has been the complexity of
the planning process for micro-generation and the lack of standard
and high quality advice available from planning officers.
One of the major water utilities has told us
that they would like to install micro-generation technologies
on many of their sites, but have been deterred by the level of
resources they would have to devout to the planning process.
Several of our households have questioned why
their electricity tariff goes down the more electricity they use—they
feel it should be reversed.
SHOPPING
A shopping related complaint is that supermarkets
heavily promote buy-one-get one free offers which some of our
participants feel promotes food waste.
A number of our participants complained about
over-packaging particularly for organic products which they feel
is counter-intuitive.
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