Cash for cans scheme, good idea?

sptrawler · 12 May 2016

luutzu said:
I

Teach the kids about recyling; fund programmes so the homeless have shelter and be employed in more productive work and efficient means than them going from bin to bin. etc.
.

As soon as you mention ideas to employ the poor and homeless, there is an outcry of exploitation.

luutzu · 12 May 2016

sptrawler said:
As soon as you mention ideas to employ the poor and homeless, there is an outcry of exploitation.

Not all outcry are valid. When it's wrong you tell them hippies to go up a creek.

If we're not careful in Australia, we're going to be a very poor country in a couple of generations.

The natural resources will run out and there's only so many jobs in finance and banking.

University is heading the ways of the US where it'll cost the kids a fortune to get any education. "unskilled" jobs are exported, jobs that can't be exported are automated; and without training and higher education, the population and the workforce can't do any "high skilled" jobs as well.

Well, i guess there's always the cans and bottle collection; then the rebel militias fighting against Chinese liberation.

pixel · 12 May 2016

luutzu said:
If gov't isn't there to finance social programs, what are they there for?

If tax dollars aren't suppose to fund welfare or help the needy, why are we paying taxes?

Tax dollars aren't supposed to only to bail out big corporations or provide guarantees to big banks and their creditors.

I'm told we pay out taxes so that we could have that "civil" society. A society is not civil if it blames the poor and kick the weak but kiss the rings of the rich.

Sometimes the poor and the homeless aren't that way because they're lazy and no good druggies. Sure, they might have made big mistakes in their lives; and sure, society is not there to provide all their needs... but there is that balance.

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Not many people would buy a drink and finish it off on the spot to return for 10c. People do buy in bulk, and do buy canned and bottled drinks to take away.

But anyway, if we really want the kids or the homeless to benefit somewhat; and to keep the street clean... there are other cheaper ways to do it.

Teach the kids about recyling; fund programmes so the homeless have shelter and be employed in more productive work and efficient means than them going from bin to bin. etc.

Of course the politicians know these... they just don't care for it. The idea is not to be Green or the help the homeless, it's the get from consumers an extra tax and give it to the corporate recylers.

We're getting way off topic here, so I'll try to make it short:
Not all unemployed are unemployed for the same reason. Not all homeless are homeless for the same reason. Some need help; others are quite capable to get off their azz and do something useful to help themselves - at least to the limits of their capability. And that most definitely includes jobs like collecting rubbish and cleaning public spaces. Not everybody can be a rocket scientist, but it's equally wrong to stigmatise menial jobs. A person's dignity isn't determined by the colour of his collar.

As regards "going from bin to bin", I think I made it abundantly clear that I want to reduce the amount of waste put into bins. Give consumers sufficient incentive, coercion even, to return containers and packaging to the point of origin and let the businesses carry their share. Yes, they'll squawk and squeal, so the Government won't let it happen. To that extent I share your view and resentment of Government being biased towards Big Business and utterly uncaring about the little guy. But IMHO, the opposite: spending taxes only on welfare programs, would be just as wrong.

Value Collector · 12 May 2016

pixel said:
That's flawed Maths, VC
The extra 10c (or, as I would propose: $1) are not a cost, but a refundable insurance premium. You, the consumer, pay it only once, the first time you buy a can or a bottle. Return it to the point of purchase next time you go for a full bottle or can, and the refund covers the "premium" on the next lot.
It's only when people are too lazy or uncaring about a clean environment that it becomes a "tax". And that, IMHO, is quite justified.

No its a tax, I will have to pay an extra 10cents for my drink, and then when I do the correct thing as usual and place it in my recycling bin, a 10 year old neighbor will raid the bin to claim the 10cents.

So without being lazy or uncaring of the environment, I have been taxed 10cents, and the child who was incentivised to walk the neighborhood raiding bins got the 10cents, for not really creating any value, except participating in a doubling handling scheme and putting himself at some risk associated with going through bins.

I guess you could say that instead of putting it in my regular recycle bin and have it collected as usual, I should drive my bottles across town to claim my few ten cent pieces back, but in that case that double handling is still taxing my time and there is a cost both financial and environmental to driving across town.

So either way this system is putting an extra burden on the 99% of people that already do the right thing, we have to either accept a loss of an additional 10cents on every drink we buy, or jump through hoops returning bottles to recover a portion of the loss (eg time and fuel etc mean we can never regain the full 10cents of value)

luutzu · 12 May 2016

pixel said:
We're getting way off topic here, so I'll try to make it short:
Not all unemployed are unemployed for the same reason. Not all homeless are homeless for the same reason. Some need help; others are quite capable to get off their azz and do something useful to help themselves - at least to the limits of their capability. And that most definitely includes jobs like collecting rubbish and cleaning public spaces. Not everybody can be a rocket scientist, but it's equally wrong to stigmatise menial jobs. A person's dignity isn't determined by the colour of his collar.

As regards "going from bin to bin", I think I made it abundantly clear that I want to reduce the amount of waste put into bins. Give consumers sufficient incentive, coercion even, to return containers and packaging to the point of origin and let the businesses carry their share. Yes, they'll squawk and squeal, so the Government won't let it happen. To that extent I share your view and resentment of Government being biased towards Big Business and utterly uncaring about the little guy. But IMHO, the opposite: spending taxes only on welfare programs, would be just as wrong.

I wasn't talking down or stigmatizing "menial" jobs.

For homeless people to go from bin to bin, people that make policies to encourage that are the ones looking down on homeless and poor people.

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All state and politicians are for welfare programmes - just welfare for the rich and corporations. Those are the good welfare, they say, the kind that create jobs and trickle down stuff.

The other kind of welfare... those are for priviledged lazy druggies.

So we have this cash for can stuff... it's practically welfare for waste management companies.

Or negative gearing; or the recent corporate tax cuts; or the practically zero interest rates that take money from savers and pensioners and the poor with a few grands in the bank... and give it to corporations to play with and expand their profit - for next to nothing.

---

Often, the poor and the homeless aren't the ones letting society down. Often they're the ones society left behind - mainly so more money can be given to the rich and other pet projects; but also to scare the crap out of the masses with a few paycheck-short away.

Value Collector · 12 May 2016

sptrawler said:
As soon as you mention ideas to employ the poor and homeless, there is an outcry of exploitation.

if you wanted to tax everyone 10cents (which this scheme is) a day to help the homeless, is a program to make them go through bins collecting bottles and cans really the best use of that money?

This bottle and can tax will be collecting 100's of thousands of dollars everyday maybe over a million a day, Surely if I put you in charge of tax revenue of that scale you would come up with a better use for it than employing the homeless to rummage through bins

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At the end of the day its a new tax, I will just accept that its a new tax I have to pay (add it on top of the others), But I just wish that if I am being forced to pay a tax, that it gets used wisely

Value Collector · 12 May 2016

pixel said:
As regards "going from bin to bin", I think I made it abundantly clear that I want to reduce the amount of waste put into bins. Give consumers sufficient incentive, coercion even, to return containers and packaging to the point of origin and let the businesses carry their share. .

Recycling has been growing at huge rates without this tax, I see more and more recycling bins every where, waste stations sort a lot of general these days also, every home has a recycle bin.

Homes, cafes, restruants, shopping centres, businesses, pubs and clubs etc already recycle a lot. all that will happen now is that when I drink my coke at westfields and put it in the recycle bin, the cleaners will remove it from the rest of the recycling and cash it in to fund their xmas party.

No extra benefit there, just an extra unnecessary vehicle trip every week to claim their bottles and VC has less cash to spend at XMAS and the cleaners have more.

As I said before they aren't going to be wading through creeks or scuba diving through Sydney harbour.

SirRumpole · 12 May 2016

Value Collector said:
Recycling has been growing at huge rates without this tax, I see more a nd more recycling bins every where.

Stop calling it a tax VC, it's a refundable deposit.

Value Collector · 12 May 2016

SirRumpole said:
Stop calling it a tax VC, it's a refundable deposit.

It's a tax, that you may be able to claim back if you play their game of double handling, either way this scheme will cost me money, or it will waste my time and money.

It also will probably increase the GST collected.

If the 10 cent (Tax/fee/deposit) is added to the normal wholesale price, and retailers apply their usual markup and GST, then the GST collected on each bottle will rise.

eg, the extra 10cents will probably be used in the GST calculation, so its 10cents extra + 1cent extra GST, that would equal over $100,000,000 a year.

Cash for cans scheme, good idea?

sptrawler

luutzu

pixel

DIY Trader

Value Collector

Have courage, and be kind.

luutzu

Value Collector

Have courage, and be kind.

Value Collector

Have courage, and be kind.

SirRumpole

Value Collector

Have courage, and be kind.

Cash for cans scheme, good idea?

DIY Trader

Have courage, and be kind.

Have courage, and be kind.

Have courage, and be kind.

Have courage, and be kind.

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