Mixed message on waste needs sorting

Crush everything down, squeeze all the air out, extract every last bit of plastic, glass, metal, food and cardboard. Eventually, all you are left with is hundreds of scraps of thin plastic stuffed into a bulging black sausage.

Given a financial incentive, frugal islanders have taken their waste very seriously. The States expected the number of black bags to drop. They just wildly underestimated by how much.

Instead of moving from a bag and a half a week to a single bag, the average household cut its waste by a third to just one bag a fortnight.

It is a triumph for the island, worthy of celebration on the sides of bin lorries and exactly the sort of behaviour a wasteful world needs.

It is a good news story.

Except that positive message is now being eroded. For islanders’ prudence has given the States a headache. The cash coming in from black bag stickers is £3m. short of what is needed to pay for all that expensive equipment, buildings and staff.

Their answer is to put the price up by 8%. For the average household that’s an extra tenner a year.

For most households it is not a huge sum.

But as a public message it smells worse than the baling sheds at Longue Hougue.

Follow the rules, do the right thing for the environment – and pay a financial penalty.

The answer if this goes on for many islanders will be to redouble their efforts. Fill each bag to breaking point, recycle more and eke out those stickers until the average drops even further.

What then? Put charges up again? Worryingly, the States still has its arbitrary limit of £6 a week in mind, which is almost £100 extra a year.

The States has got itself into a quandary. It has a successful waste system but it cannot keep punishing people for playing the game and reducing their environmental impact.

Those pensioners and families who spend their time doing the right thing and assiduously sorting through their waste deserve better than to be charged more for the privilege.