What makes Ireland so different from the rest of Europe in public attitudes to paying for the collection of the waste? asks Frank McDonald
The imprisonment of Mr Joe Higgins TD and his Socialist Party colleague, Ms Clare Daly, for contempt of court has undoubtedly added fuel to the anti-bin-charges campaign. But the central issue of paying for waste management will not go away.
Like the plastic-bag tax introduced in March of last year, charging for door-to-door collection of domestic refuse represents an application of the long-established "polluter pays" principle, which is enshrined in EU environmental legislation and widely accepted throughout Europe.
Nobody could dispute that the 15 cent tax imposed on plastic supermarket bags has been a resounding success. It has reduced the use of such bags by around 90 per cent, as well as raising significant revenue to support other environmental initiatives, such as the provision of more "bring banks".
Neither the Socialist Party nor any of the larger political parties criticised the plastic-bag levy as a form of "double taxation". A specific environmental problem - the proliferation of millions of non-biodegradable plastic bags - had to be addressed, and the most effective way to do so was at the point of sale.
Until recent years few householders gave any consideration to the volume of waste they were producing or the cost of collecting and disposing of it.
So long as the bins were emptied and the black plastic refuse sacks were whisked away, it didn't matter where they were going or what happened to the waste.
But then, if a new landfill site - or, worse still, a waste-incinerator - was proposed for anywhere in the vicinity, angry householders would band together in ad-hoc action groups to oppose the plan, come hell or high water. It became the classic, and most widespread, example of the NIMBY phenomenon.
It has been estimated that the true cost of collecting domestic refuse works out at €600 per household on average.
That's the kind of revenue that's needed to pay for the new generation of highly engineered landfill sites as well as the inherently uneconomic door-to-door collecction of dry recyclables.
No local authority in the State is yet charging householders the full cost of domestic waste collection, though the new Protection of the Environment Act, 2003, gives city and county managers the power to do so - without any reference to the elected members of local authorities.
The Act also gives local authorities the explicit power to stop collecting domestic waste from householders who have not paid the charges, thus setting aside a Supreme Court judgment in late 2001 that they did not have the right to do so and could only recover unpaid charges as a contract debt.
Introducing the legislation last January, the Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, said local authorities should be able to respond in the most direct manner.
"It is simply not acceptable that people who refuse to pay for their waste service should have the luxury of having their waste collected," he said.
At present, however, waste charges - typically €275 a year - are not directly related to volume; only when that happens will the "polluter pays" principle be equitably applied.
The same should be done to reduce our profligate waste of water by metering every home's consumption and charging accordingly.
Other European countries have been charging for waste collection and water consumption for years, and their citizens do not, in general, perceive these charges as "double taxation".
What makes Ireland so different, especially when there are waivers for those on low incomes who cannot afford to pay?