No Microchips in Hedge End’s Waste and Recycling Bins, Say Eastleigh Borough Council

Eastleigh Borough Council has posted a statement on its website to say that they do not use microchipping in their waste and recycling bins.

I guess this is in response to the recent articles in the newspapers reporting that more and more councils are installing microchips.

Some councils say the microchips are so they can identify to which house a bin belongs to. However apparently many people are worried that not only will microchips mean councils can weigh the amount of waste in a bin – and which could lead to householders being charged for the amount they throw away – but that councils could also monitor the type of rubbish thrown away.

The information on the increase of the use of microchips by councils comes from the Big Brother Watch report called ‘Lifting the Lid’.

In it Big Brother Watch claim that 68 local authorities in Britain and Northern Ireland have installed microchips in the waste bins of at least 2.6m households with councils spending £1.022,727 during the last year to achieve this. Big Brother Watch says that last year only 42 local authorities used microchipping.

Big Brother Watch is worried that councils are going to be intruding into people’s private lives and will eventually tax people on how much they throw away.

Personally, I’m all for recycling and think if fitting microchips to bins will encourage more people to recycle and to recycle more then they would be a good idea, even if it did mean taxing people on the amount of rubbish thrown out. Wouldn’t it be fairer – to responsible residents and the environment – if irresponsible households were penalised?

As for checking what’s in our rubbish? Don’t councils have better things to do with their time? And how would microchips do this anyway?

What do other people in Hedge End think?