City Living: It's time to get ready for pay-by-weight refuse systems soon to be introduced by local authorities, says Edel Morgan

Will the polluter pay or the person who fails to buy a gravity lock? Come January a pay by weight refuse system is being introduced by local authorities nationwide which will provide us with the financial incentive to recycle our household waste.

Few would disagree that in theory it's a more equitable system. Why should single people and small households pay the same fee to have their bins emptied as large families? Pay and weigh also makes environmental sense as it is aimed at reducing the amount of waste going into landfill.

But on a more selfish level, how will you avoid paying for those who interpret "equitable" as evenly distributing their rubbish amongst other people's bins?

The gravity lock is your only defence against the rubbish dumper , an elusive, slippery species who usually work at the dead of night or when people are at work . Often the only way to discover their identity is to infiltate their contraband rubbish in the hope of finding some vital clues.

I've heard of one woman who discovered the culprit's identity by doing just that. In the end she was too embarrassed to confront the couple responsible but decided to play a long game and wait to catch them red handed. After all, how could she admit to spending hours going through their grizzly, stinking rubbish?

One wonders if by January she will take a zero tolerance approach .

The local authorities don't provide or sell the gravity locks, you have to buy your own. A company in Ballybrack who sell the locks told The Irish Times that one for a standard domestic wheelie bins costs around €60 but for a larger bins in an apartment complex will cost €120 plus each, depending on their size "but we have not had any demand for them yet." When the bin is turned upside down a pendulum releases the lock allowing the bin to empty.

In Dublin City Council, for example, it will cost a householder €340 for the year if they put out a standard sized bin every week. To put out a bin every second week will cost €210 and every third week, €165. This works on a €80 standard charge plus a €5 charge per bin emptied.

Some believe this €340 annual fee to put a bin out every week - which cost €190 last year - discriminates against larger families who are likely to have a higher proportion of non-recyclable materials in their waste.

Eurobins will be provided in larger apartment schemes and it is up to the landlord or management company to make sure the waste charges are paid and bags or Eurobins are labelled. Individual labels costs €28 and six-month labels cost €700. City Council tenants are responsible for their own waste charges, although waivers will be available for those whose sole income is from Social Welfare, or where the household income is below the income tax threshold,

Fingal County Council is proposing increases of up to 20 per cent in their bin charges for 2005.There are still pockets of the county that don't have green recycling bins but Fingal County Council is arguing that this is its first increase in three years .

Fingal has received applications for 10,000 waivers out of a household figure of 70,000.

Another problem is a lack of recycling facilities in some areas of the country. There are only 55 recycling centres in the country - although there are more standalone bottle and clothes banks - penalising those who have no centre nearby or who lack the transport or the physical ability to travel to one.

There is no doubt though that as a nation we don't recycle enough . A recent survey showed that some 14 per cent of Irish people never recycles with Connaught/Ulster being the worst provinces with one in four not recycling. The shining examples to us all are families with children under ten years old.

Pilot pay-by-weight schemes in Cork and Monaghan showed a successful reduction by 30 per cent of the amount going to landfill. The system works by fitting a microchip to a bin which is linked to the customer's account. The bins are weighed electronically during the lifting cycle, recording the differential in weight before and after. There will be some differences in the way local authorities will operate the system. Some will continue a pay by volume tagging system while others will charge per lift and per kilogram as well as a set annual service charge.

There is still a long way to go before we are in line with the Dutch example. They pay an average of €235 a year in bin charges per household and just over 10 per cent of their waste goes into landfills.