James Murray

The news that two thirds of people are in favour of "pay as you throw" schemes for disposing of household waste designed to encourage greater levels of recycling hints that local government might finally be making progress in its attempts to tackle the UK's appallingly low recycling rate.

Despite media hysteria about stealth taxes and spying microchips in your bins it seems most people are happy to support "pay as you throw" schemes in return for the promise of lower council taxes and more recycling facilities.

At first glance the idea that households would pay based on the size of the bin or bin bags they use or the weight of the rubbish they send to landfill appears an elegant solution to the problem of the UK only recycling 27 percent of its household waste. The person who creates the most mess pays the most, creating a major incentive for them to recycle more and reduce the amount sent to landfill and also giving them an extra reason to increase pressure on retailers to reduce packaging.

There is also evidence such a scheme would prove effective with a weight-based charging mechanism used in Holland having led to a 41 percent reduction in general waste.

But what remains largely unaddressed is the amount local councils will have to charge in order to make a significant difference on recycling rates.

There is a precedent here in the world of business where paying based on the weight of rubbish you produce has been well-established for years. This model has had some impact and many businesses have put in place waste reduction strategies to limit their costs and their environmental impact.

However, despite this polluter pays mechanism waste disposal remains a relatively small cost for most firms and as a result very few have put in place wide-reaching waste reduction and recycling programmes that have become genuine priorities for the business. When your turnover runs to millions of pounds how much management priority do you give to reducing waste bills of several thousand pounds? Waste remains a niche concern for most businesses and is treated as such.

The same problem can be seen in reverse in the, shall we say mixed, track record of schemes where you get paid for recycling. I was at a music festival last weekend where in an attempt to give the whole thing a green veneer the bars offered to give you 10 pence back for every cardboard beer cup you returned to a recycling point. With a whopping 10 pence on offer and plenty of better things to do with your time than trek through the crowds to a recycling point the whole site was soon predictably littered with cardboard cups as people took a more traditional approach to festival waste disposal. Offer people a pound or more and the scheme might well have worked, although it would have also been a commercial disaster.

It is these realities that are bound to afflict any "pay as you throw" scheme for household waste.

Like many people I regard council tax as a rather regressive mechanism and a huge monthly irritation, but despite having to shell out for the London Olympics and having seen my council tax climb well above inflation for the last few years I am still loath to grumble too much on the grounds that I would happily pay pretty much the entire amount just for the convenience of a rubbish collection service.

Can you imagine how annoying and smelly it would be to have to take your own rubbish to the tip every week? Or indeed how unpleasant your street would be when your neighbours simply started fly-tipping instead of transporting their own trash to the landfill site?

It is my guess that any "pay as you throw" scheme would have to boast pretty hefty charges if it wanted to lead to a major reduction in waste quantities. Set the charges too low and you'll have some impact, but many people will simply decide to pay for the larger bins or heavier waste to avoid the hassle of sorting out their recycling and reducing their waste. But set the charges high – at a level that would actually make people think twice about their waste – and you risk both alienating public support and, as the Tories have warned, encouraging illegal fly-tipping.

Waste charges undoubtedly would help focus minds on recycling and would have a positive impact, but if the UK is ever to achieve European levels of recycling far more widespread changes are required. It is my guess that the success of the Dutch "pay as you throw" schemes are as much down to more widespread and effective recycling collection and facilities, less packaging in the first place and a long-standing culture of recycling as they are down to the waste charges.

Any UK "pay as you throw" scheme would have to address these wider issues as well if it is to prove successful and popular. For example, I already strive to recycle as much as possible, but am often hampered by the fact that the recycling bins at the end of my street are frequently full and there is no information either on the bins or distributed by the council on what types of waste can be recycled and what I have to put out for the rubbish collectors.

Meanwhile, I have little choice but to shop in a supermarket where most items are encased by several layers of packaging. And don't get me started on the fact that the WEEE directive has been in place for two months and I am yet to see a single WEEE recycling collection point anywhere.

There are also wider lessons here for any business looking to incentivise green behaviour, be it waste disposal, energy saving, or some other form of sustainable action.

Firstly, incentive schemes can play a key role in publicising an issue, but if they are to lead to widespread behavioural change then the rewards and/or penalties have to be big enough to compensate for the hassle of making the change.

And secondly, and most importantly, the incentive scheme has to accompanied by sufficient structural changes to ensure the desired behavioural change is easily achievable.

Local councils will have to demonstrate that they understand these lessons, and fast, or they might as well consign their dream of achieving European levels of recycling to the waste bin now.