Sir, – Charging householders for waste they go to the trouble of recycling is a scandal. It exposes the lie that waste charges are about protecting the environment and confirms that they are purely a means to make profit for private waste companies, many of whom do not even pay tax in this country. The Government should ban any charges for recycled waste and move immediately to return waste and recycling services to public ownership. If the Government was serious about protecting the environment and reducing waste, it would ban non-recyclable packaging and containers. It would invest in developing publicly owned domestic recycling infrastructure and industry, which could both protect the environment and potentially create many green jobs. – Yours, etc,
RICHARD
BOYD BARRETT TD,
Leinster House,
Dublin 2.