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Pravin Jeyaraj, Extract from PhD Thesis

Resistance in Household Recycling


The UK government has placed the household at the centre of its waste
and recycling policy. Since 1990,there has been no general legal
obligation for households to recycle or, indeed, even to present waste for
collection. The state has traditionally been a representative of what it
means to be human at a particular moment; it is paternal because the
(white) male was seen as the human, while everything else, including
women was non-human and pushed into the environment. Hegel said this
view came from the idea of the male as an independent consciousnessess
detached from its body, while the woman was connected to or in touch
with its body; the focus of a man's life was in the paternal state, because
the independent consciousness requires the external body of public life,
while the woman's life was private because the consciousness is already
aware and connected to its body of the household or family. I would argue
that it is still legitimate to consider the state as paternal or male and the
non-state

environment

policymakers

in

the

as
US

maternal
and

UK

or
are

female,

because

influenced

by

existing

libertarian

paternalism.1So if law is an expression of the dialectic and the tool by


which the lawmaker tames, the household is the unexplored wilderness. At
1 Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Nudge: Improving decisions about health,
wealth and happiness, (Penguin, London, 2009), ; Michael Grunwald, How
Obama is using the Science of Change, TIME Magazine, 2 April 2009,
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1889153,00.html; The
Conservative Party, David Cameron: The Big Society, Speech, 10 November
2009,
http://www.conservatives.com/News/Speeches/2009/11/David_Cameron_The_Big
_Society.aspx ).

the same time, the household is its own city of people protected from the
external legal environment. In placing the obligation on local authorities to
provide waste and recycling collection services, the state governs itself
and, for the most part, allows the household to govern itself. The
boundary between household and the legal environment, or between the
state and the environment, is clearly demarcated. There is reciprocity
between the official definition of the household2 at the centre of the legal
environment and the Hegelian family that opens up into the 'civic
community'3. As an entity that holds together all the people who live in
the same place, then it is a posthuman dialectic. A house in multiple
occupation, where there are at least three tenants from more than one
household who share a kitchen, bathroom or toilet, is really an extended
household or Hegelian family. The household generates itself fractal-like
into a city where the Hegelian wife is being cared for by the Hegelian
husband and the paternal state is looking after the households in its
environment. As the Hegelian family, the relationship between the state
and the household has an impact on the future, that is the environment.
There appears to be a mismatch between the sense of government
urgency to change household behaviour and the actual response of
households. On the one hand, the government wants to change household
2 Department for Communities and Local Government,
http://www.communities.gov.uk/housing/housingresearch/housingstatistics/definit
iongeneral/: One person or group of persons who have the accommodation as
their only or main residence and (for a group) either share at least one meal a
day or share the living accommodation, that is, a living room or sitting room.
3Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of Right, (first published 1821, Dover
2005),para 181 - Note

behaviour because it is vital towards meeting...national targets in a cost


effective way4. On the other hand, research from the Department for the
Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) indicates that, over the last
20 years, household recycling rates have slowly increased and attitudes to
recycling have improved.5The averageamount of waste recycled and not
recycled

per

person,

in

kilograms,

has

increased

and

decreased

respectively. Between the years 1991/2 and 2008/9, the overall amount of
household waste not recycled per person fell by about 27% from 417kg to
303kg and the amount of household waste recycled rose by about 16%. 6
Furthermore, in a representative survey for Defra, 91% of respondents in
2009 said that they recycled instead of throwing away compared to 70%
in 2007 and 88% said that people have a duty to recycle. 7Of course, it is
problematic looking at per-person weights for a number of reasons: some
people will recycle more than others, waste is collected on a household
not individual basis and a 16% increase in recycling over 20 years does
4Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Partial Regulatory
Impact Assessment: Consultation on Incentives for Recycling by Households,
(May 2007), para 6 [emphasis added]
5 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste and
recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
6 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste and
recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
7 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2009 Survey of public
attitudes and behaviours towards the environment', 23 September 2009; The
department has conducted periodic public attitudes surveys since 1986,
available at http://www.defra.gov.uk/statistics/environment/public-attitude/ and
the general trend suggests improvement in attitudes and behaviour with regard
to the environment, but it is difficult to compare different surveys because
different categories and questions are used each time.

not appear to be much of a rise. However, recycling does appear to be


going in the right, upward, direction and arguably a social norm 8.
Households seem to have the growing tendancy to behave as the
government desires, so the question is why recycling is not yet a universal
practice or why it is taking so long, relatively speaking.
It is arguable that there is some resistance to submitting at the household
level. Even though the amount of waste per person recycled rose from
1991/2, the amount of waste per person not recycled was still on an
upward trend until 2001/2.9 This suggests that, for about 10 years, the
amount of waste recycled was not necessarily large enough to change the
trend of waste not recycled.Putting the rubbish out for collection is a social
norm or societal habit.10Malabou argues that habit is automatic from the
beginning; it starts off with something accidental, what could be a one-off
or occasional, random act I would argue will-to-power - but, through

8 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Government Review
of Waste Policy in England 2011', August 2011, para 70
9 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste and
recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix
10 Heather Chappells and Elizabeth Shove, in their 1999 paper, Bins and the
history of waste relations provide an account of the history of household waste
bins and collection in the UK. In the 1800s, public health legislation called for
each dwelling to have an ashpit privy; the waste was collected, sold to
businesses and recycled to manufacture certain products. As the nature of the
waste changed materially, its economic value fell, but waste disposal continued.
Public health and environmental laws called for central waste deposits such as
landfills. The paper is available in the Consumption, Everyday Life and
Sustainability Reader, published by Lancaster University,
http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fass/projects/esf/bins.htm

repetition, becomes learned.11 Completely changing a habit is not as fast


or easy as it sounds. A great deal of behaviour is neither conscious nor
deliberate, but is habitualHabitual behaviour is automatic, and responds
to contextual cues rather than explicit instructions. 12 Sometimes, being
told that recycling is a good thing to do is not enough. Indeed, Hegel calls
habits

second naturebecausethey

are simultaneously

inherent

and

learned.Despite the apparent resistance, however, the amount of waste


not recycled still fell in 20 years by a greater amount than by which the
amount of waste recycled rose.13 One might speculate that each person is
either reusing more packaging than before or buying less disposable
packaging. There is resistance to change; but submission to government
desires has already occurred and is occurring.
However, as mentioned above, it is still problematic to look at per-person
or averageweight. We are not all the same, so per-person weight is a
property of an abstract person. In essence, the research indicates that the
abstract person is recycling more and throwing away less. But the only
role of this abstract legal subject is to support universal norms like
recycling or disposal - and to possess legal rights (to a waste and
11 Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity, Temporality and Dialectic, 1996,
(Lisabeth During (tr), Routledge, 2005), 73-4: What in the beginning was merely an
accidental factis changed through continual repetition of the same gestures, through
practice, achieving the integrity of a form.

12 House of Lords, Behaviour Change: Written Evidence from A-C, The Select Committee
on Science and Technology, 24 November 2010, Available from:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/lords-select/science-andtechnology-committee/inquiries/behaviour/, 225

13 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Household waste
and recycling in the UK' (5 November 2009), See Appendix

recycling collection service) and duties (none). It is clear that itdoes not
reflect reality fully. National law and policy is not meant to address
fictional problems while abstraction does not take in account the
contradiction of the plastic individual. The legal subject is not a fully
recognised concrete individual.14Individual entities are plastic in that they
each have their own capacity to form and resist deformation, that is they
have an impact on each others environment and is a part of the others
environment.15 The plasticity of the dialectic manifests in an individual
dialectic between resistance and change over time16. This can be seen
from a study by the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP)s into
barriers to household recycling: only 6% of households admitted to not
recycling at all and 30% were classed as super-committed recyclers, but
the majority of households (64%) were classed as non-committed
recyclers or general committed recyclers, i.e. they accepted the universal
ideal or norm of recycling but, for whom, it was not translating fully in
their particular circumstances.17The research from WRAP and Defra
indicate that it is quite possible, indeed probable, that, regardless of what
14Douzinas, Costas (2000). The end of human rights: Critical Legal Thought at
the Turn of the Century, 267
15 Malabou, 2005
16Pravin Jeyaraj, Plasticity, Recycling and Procrastination: The Dialectic between
Resistance and Change, Westminster Law Review,
http://www.westminsterlawreview.org/wlr1.php
17Pocock, Robert; Stone, Ian; Clive, Helen; Smith, Rebecca; Jesson, Jill; Wilczak, Stefan,
Barriers to recycling at home, (Waste Resources Action Programme, Banbury,
Oxfordshire, 2008), p4,
http://www.wrap.org.uk/downloads/Barriers_to_Recycling_Summary_Report1.9dea9c06.57
34.pdf

the average person does, a plastic individual would believe that recycling
is the right thing to do and yet not recycle to an extent. In other words, it
both wants to go forward and recycle and stay where it is. When Hegel
describes plastic individuals as exemplary, he says they are 'great and
free, grown independently on the soil of their own inherently substantial
personality, self-made and developing into what they (essentially) were
and wanted to be'18.On the one hand, the plastic individual is the ultimate
goal of what has gone before and thus at its peak; on the other, it still has
some way to go and is the origin for what is still to come. In other words,
the plastic individual is at a point of le voir venir, where one can see what
is coming. To be plastic, therefore, involves a capacity to resist the future
and a capacity to submit to the future. There are two opposites of
plasticity, both which involve forgetting our plasticity. Forgetting our
capacity to submit makes us stubborn or stagnant as if we are elastic.
Forgetting our capacity to resist makes us flexible, easily bent, docile,
submissive.19 Both instances lead to a form of death through a loss of
vitality20 or a diminution of neuronal connections21. Elasticity is imposed
by one body, flexibility by another.
Forgetting
18Malabou, 2005, 10
19Malabou, What Should We Do With The Brain?, (Sebastian Rand (tr), Fordham
University Press, 2008), 12
20Malabou, 2005, 24; Malabou, 2008,
21Malabou, What Should We Do With The Brain?, (Sebastian Rand (tr), Fordham
University Press, 2008), 48

Forgetfulness is an inherent property of any relationship. One could argue


that a habit is recycled behaviour. From Malabous metaphor of the plastic
brain, a habit or behaviour in general -comes from the repetition of
neuronal bonds; it is the recycling of a relationship between neurons.
Since confirmation of self-consciousness (and hence self-consciousness
itself) arises out of connected neurons, it could be argued that the
neuronal bond is an act of Hegelian recognition or recycling. Habit is an
inevitable

consequence

of

self-consciousness.To

recycle

means

to

reiterate a relationship, not the amount of matter or material, but in the


brain, the strength of the relationship can be seen by the existence of
material produced. Just the relationship between the Hegelian husband
and wife is embodied in the procreation of children, the relationship
between the paternal state and the household is embodied in the
production of waste.22 Where the households relationship with the state is
supported by the law, this is what Hegel called legal ethical love. The
recycleability of the relationship indicated by the presentation 23 of
material for collection but should not be about the volume nor the type; in
a sense, It is the thought the counts. The legal definition of waste as
substance or object...which the holder discards or intends or is required

22From a Marxist perspective, the production of waste is a process that requires


definite connections and relations to one another whose operation has an
influence on nature:Karl Marx, Wage Labour as Capital, (First published 1849,
Frederick Engels (trans.),
1993)http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch05.htm
23 This is the technical term used by all local authorities to describe the act of a
household leaving rubbish or recycling out for collection.

to discard24 does not differentiate between what really is waste, to be


disposed, and what is usable or recyclable. 25The judicial reasoning in
ARCO, concerned about not undermining the effectiveness of the [EU]
directive, seems to include most production residues as waste, interpreted
as a discard. The fact that the residue is disposed of or used in an
environmentally responsible way and without substantial treatment does
not help, even if it is useful. What subsequently happens to it is not the
criterion.26 In a sense, waste is the gift (a present) that the household
voluntarily gives (presents) as a sign of its relationship with the state but
is independent of the relationship. The very idea of presenting implies a
temporal act of the household sending waste into unknown future for the
legal environment to deal with. The household recognises that the local
authority is legally obliged to collect household waste and recycling and
the local authority recognises the households need to forget. What the
local authority actually does with the collected material is not a
fundamental part of the relationship with the household. The household
trusts the local authority to deal with the waste in the way that is
appropriate or as it has promised. As a result, the household, the Hegelian
wife, can forget about it because it has been taken care off by the
24 EU Directive on waste, 91/156/EEC, Article 1 ; Environmental Protection Act
1990, section 75
25 Opinion of A-G Jacobs in Tombesi, Case C-304/94 [1997] CMLR 673
26 Alec Samuels, The legal concept of waste, Journal of Planning and
Environmental Law, 2010, 1391, 1392; ARCO Chemie Nederland Ltd v Minister
van Volkshuisvesting, RuimtelijkeOrdening en Milieubeheer (C-418/97) [2000]
E.C.R. I-4475 (ECJ (5th Chamber))

Hegelian husband, the state.27However, the relationship breaks down


when the local authority does not appear to listen to its residents, for
whatever reason, and accept the gift.28 In a sense, the passing of waste is,
like law, a sign or expression of the dialectic.
Therefore, it could be argued that the better the relationship with the
state, the more waste the household produces for presenting. In the brain,
the strongest neuronal relationships are supported by the highest
abundance of biological matter.

In a sense, waste is a signifier of a

wealthy relationship and a submissiveness or generosity to the state. 29


After all, the more you benefit in a particular (legal) environment, the
more you love it and are predisposed to preserving it. This idea of waste
as a signifier of wealth echoes Marx, who argues that the vast majority of
27Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Absent Environments: Theorising Environmental
Law and the City, 2007, Routledge/GlassHouse, Oxford, UK,196; In the course of
writing this chapter, I experienced directly the sense of reliance and trust we
place on the local authority; on one particular day the residual waste had not
been collected at all as it was supposed to be. This omission was rectified the
next day and there was a mechanism in place to let my local authority know of
its failure; London Borough of Sutton, http://www.sutton.gov.uk/index.aspx?
articleid=3639
28 Kenny McKay, Homeowners blast council over failure to collect rubbish for
two months', STV local, 11 January 2012,
http://local.stv.tv/coatbridge/news/24963-homeowners-blast-council-over-failureto-collect-rubbish-for-two-months/; The Sun, Councils rubbish, 1 Jan 2011,
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3326189/Binmen-fail-to-collectrubbish-for-up-to-four-weeks.html; Steve Doughty and Claire Ellicott, Its not a
major problem": Council leader defends lack of bin collection for a MONTH
despite mountains of rubbish, rats and a vile stench, Daily Mail, 4 January 2011,
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1343867/Rubbish-crisis-Council-leaderdefends-lack-bin-collection-MONTH.html; Steve Bagnall, Councils under fire for
failing to collect Christmas rubbish', Daily Post/Wales Online,
http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/denbigh/2010/12/30/councilsunder-for-failing-collect-christmas-rubbish-91466-27906545/

society cannot afford the much of what is produced whilst those who can
afford cannot cope with the volumes; the waste and recycling system is
thus meant to create space for the household to buy more. 30 However,
research for the Local Government Association indicates that social
demographics have an impact on the amount of waste produced, 31
particularly the size of the household but not necessarily income 32. I would
argue therefore that the wealth or abundance to which Baudrillard and
Marx refer is the wealth of the relationship, the sense of trust. In putting
its trust in the local authority or the state, the household forgets as soon
as it consumes, spits out before it chews, throws its object into the past
before they are even aired in the present...not production for the sake of

29 Jean Baudrillard, The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures,(Sage , 1998),


43 In: Philiippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Absent Environments: Theorising
Environmental Law and the City, 2007, Routledge/GlassHouse, Oxford, UK, 198:
The production of waste rather than goods is the main indication of abundance,
affluence and social pre-eminence: waste even appears ultimately as the
essential function, the extra degree of expenditure, superfluity, the ritual
uselessness of expenditure for nothing becoming the sites of production of
value, difference and meanings on both the individual and the social level..
30 Frederick Engels, Introduction to Karl Marxs Wage Labour and Capital, 1891:
Karl Marx, Wage Labour as Capital, (First published 1849, Frederick Engels
(trans.), 1993), http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wagelabour/index.htm: On the one hand, immeasurable wealth and a superfluidity of
products with which the buyers cannot cope. On the other hand, the great mass
of society proletarianized, transformed into wage-labourers, and thereby disabled
from appropriating to themselves that superfluidity of products.
31 Jim Dunton, Whose residents are the greenest of them all?, Local
Government Chronicle, 26 November 2009
32 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Partial Regulatory
Impact Assessment: Consultation on Incentives for Recycling by Households, May
2007, para 31-2

usage or desirability but production for the sake of production 33.Reusing


could be regarded as proper digestion, where the household chews
properly before spitting it out or digesting it, a form of aerobic digestion
compared to the anaerobic digestion by bacteria to deal with organic
waste. The different priorities of the waste hierarchy 34 could be regarded
as the varying degrees of plasticity or materiality of the dialectic between
the state and the household35.We are always nearly there but not quite.
The legally-required waste hierarchy recognises the plasticity, or even
superfluidity36, of waste. At each priority level, waste resists being
deformed into something else while its use changes. Therefore, the
governments desire to move beyond our current throwaway society to a
zero waste economy in which material resources are re-used, recycled
and recovered'37 is arguably unrealistic because of the nature of waste. If
anything, waste is capital for the relationship between household and
state because it consists of raw materials, instruments of labour, and
means of subsistence of all kinds, which are employed in producing new
33Philiippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, Absent Environments: Theorising Environmental
Law and the City, 2007, Routledge/GlassHouse, Oxford, UK, 198
34Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of
19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives, Article
4;Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Government Review
of Waste Policy in England 2011', August 2011, para 30-31
35
36Superfluidity a dialectical state between a lack of viscosity and surface
tension.
37 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Government Review
of Waste Policy in England 2011', August 2011, para 28;

raw materials, new instruments and new means of subsistence. 38There's


no such thing as a zero waste capitalist economy, because waste is legally
anything that is not wanted; whether someone else wants it is beside the
point. It seems like more of an aspiration than an achievable goal.Zero
waste, therefore, points to a breakdown in or negation of the dialectic
between state and the household, with nothing being passed between
them. The waste would have to be passed to someone else. During the
last 40 years, the law39 has enabled private companies to take over
operational responsibility for waste collection and disposal. 40Non-state
actors have filled the gap left by the traditional Hegelian husband. But it is
not necessarily due to a seduction of the household; it is passed from one
husband to another, like Jocasta. In a sense, zero waste is an attempt by
the state to forget that its relationship with the household is not automatic
but depends on the households choice to submit.
From Mutual Recognition to Master/Slave Dialectic
In forgetting that wealth is an expression of the relationship, the state
distorts the law from an expression of recognition to one of the
master/slave dialectic, where an independent Master sees the passively
submissive Slave as the means by which to obtain the third Other. The
38 Karl Marx, Wage Labour as Capital, (First published 1849, Frederick Engels
(trans.), 1993), http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wagelabour/ch05.htm
39 Primarily the Control of Pollutions Act 1974 and Environmental Protection Act
1990
40PravinJeyaraj, 'Plasticity, Recycling and Procrastination: The Dialectic Between
Resistance and Change, Westminster Law Review (Febuary 2012), 5

change reflects the sadomasochistic love triangle in Pauline Regans The


Story of O between O, her lover Rene and his brother Sir Stephen. 41 At
first, the Hegelian wife (the household) submits to the Hegelian husband
(the state), who rationally imposes limits in his actions to ensure the
survival of the wife; if the wife dies, the husband dies. However, Later on,
the husband presents the wife to another man, who demands loveless
obedience. Instead of a marriage driven by legal ethical love, the
relationship between the state substitute and the household is part of
Deleuze and Guatteris production of industry or Marxs production of
social relations, where all the householdis essentially a worker in a
Corporation.42 This can be seen from discussions in government literature
about waste as a resource and a zero waste economy, 43 and more
generally on the imposition of targets 44. In the master/slave dialectic,
there is an apparent imbalance in the relationship and what was
essentially a family is transformed into a workplace or economy, i.e. a
situation driven by economics (from the Greek, oikonomia, for household

41 Jessica Benjamin, The Bonds of Love: psychoanalysis, feminism and the


problem of domination, (Pantheon, 1988), 56
42 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Philosophy of Right, (first published 1821,
Dover 2005), para 250: Corporation is what Hegel calls a company and legal
ethical love protects the slave/worker as it does the Hegelian wife.
43 Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Government Review
of Waste Policy in England 2011', August 2011, para 4,28
44 European Union, Council Directive 1999/31/EC on the landfill of
waste(transplanted into UK law as Waste and Emissions Trading Act 2003),
Article 5

management). In this respect, incentivisation45 could be viewed as


anattempt to rebalance the dialectic, like paying a fair 46 wage in a
contractual relationship. The state is already obliged to offer a waste and
recycling collection service. If the household presents waste for recycling
(acceptance), it will receive a reward (consideration).

The aim of

theincentive appears to rebalance the dialectic by substitution, making up


for the lack of recognition. In a sense, the state substituteis paying for the
love of the household, which is owed to the state, creating a
concubinage where the chief factor is the satisfaction of natural desire47.
In the Corporation, employees are passed from capitalist to capitalist;
more specifically, the wife becomes a sex worker or prostitute.
Yet, it could be argued that incentives still return the master/slave
dialectic to one of mutual recognition. This can be seen from a selection of
residents' comments48 in relation to the first two incentivised household
recycling schemes in England, for the Royal Borough of Windsor and
45The literature on incentives and behaviour change use the term 'incentives to
refer to financial or economic instruments that are either both positive incentives
(rewards, subsidies) and negative incentives (fines, punishment). For the purpose
of this thesis, I use incentives itself as a synonym for positive incentives and
compulsion or fines as synonyms for negative incentives.
46 The question of the fairness of an incentive of 5.5 points per kilogram of
recyclables, as paid by Recyclebank, is beyond the scope of this thesis.
Recyclebank says that its payouts are capped at 135 a year, which is equivalent
to just under 2.60 a week. Certainly, Marx would point out that the amount that
the household is paid is less that the value of its labour-power.
47 Hegel, 1821, para 163 - Addition
48 The comments are a combination of local authority press releases and
journalistic news reports posted on Youtube by Recyclebank, the company
operating the incentive scheme.

Maidenhead49and Halton Borough Council50. In Halton's own press release,


local resident Clare Hart is quoted as saying: It has been really easy to
recycle and it is no different to what we were doing anyway. The only
difference is we are now getting rewarded for it which is great.51
Thissuggests that she did not need a incentive to change her behaviour,
because she was already recycling, but she still appreciated the
recognition. Similarly, in Windsor and Maidenhead, the importance of the
incentive was also downplayed by residents who were interviewed by
journalists. Stuart Miles gave the impression that the incentive was a
bonus rather than the purpose for doing something: I would do it because
we believe in that and we got kids so we want to teach them that
recycling is good thing but, at the end of the day, having a reward doesnt
necessarily help me further but it obviously rewards me for being a better
citizen, I suppose.52 John Eldridge told London Tonight: Sometimes you
dont like being told what to do and well take offense to that. But if its a
scheme where the community can join in and is actually earning rewards
49Waste Improvement Network, Incentives, rewards and behavioural change Royal
Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead', (Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead,
Maidenhead, 2011), p5

50Halton Borough Council, Halton residents rewarded for recycling in borough wide rollout, (Halton Borough Council, Widnes, 2010),
http://www2.halton.gov.uk/content/newsroom/latestnews/1674866?a=5441[emphasis
added]

51Halton Borough Council, Halton residents rewarded for recycling in borough


wide roll-out [emphasis added]
52 UK Finds a Solution, (Youtube, 15 December 2010),
http://www.youtube.com/user/greenphd1?feature=mhee#p/f/25/aTKjyDrLe_4 [viewed 7
June 2011]

for yourself or our schools in the area by putting out recycling, which we
are being asked to do anyway, its a win-win situation.53 In a news item
about the Greater London Authoritys plans to encourage incentivised
recycling in London, one unnamed local resident said that it would be
nice, even if it's just to get a pint of milk freeit's something to let you
know that we are doing it. I suppose that we all like to be praised for what
we do.54Of course, the above comments represent the views of a handful
of households but it would appear that the main effect of this particular
reward scheme is to offer a slap on the back for recognition.Indeed, one
feature of the Recyclebank scheme is that points can be exchanged for
money-off vouchers that have Thank You for Recycling emblazoned
across them. On the one hand, the recognition is consideration for work
done provided by a third party, like a prostitute; on the other hand, the
illicit relationship is sanctioned by the husband and thus enables mutual
recognition.
Arguably, the offer of incentives has had the desired effect of increasing
recycling. According to Windsor and Maidenheads own data, there was an
average increase of 35% in the weight of recyclable material collected
over the course of the schemes pilot period from June 2009 to 2010. The
scheme was then rolled-out in full across the borough, with a recycling
rate of 39% and a 71% opt-in rate.55In Halton, 60% of households in the

53RecycleBank in the UK.2010b.Video. 15 December 2010, viewed 7 June 2011,


http://www.youtube.com/user/greenphd1?feature=mhee#p/f/22/WJ6pvHF-agI

54 ibid

pilot area activated their Recyclebank accounts56 and participating


households recycled 60% more waste on average than non-participating
households57, during the six-month pilot scheme. A more recent survey of
Halton residents in 2011 showed that 79% were recycling more frequently
since the start of the programme.58 This seems to suggest that individuals
value being recognised for what they do, even if the recognition is
financial or substitutionary and designed to offset a previously distorted
view of law. On the one hand, the distortion was the provision of waste by
the household to the state for nothing, without incentives; On the other
hand, the state was already providing what the household wanted, so the
incentives distorted that. There appears to be a dialectic between a
marriage of 'legal ethical love' and a concubinage. The plasticity of the
dialectic

between

the

household

and

the

state

comprises

two

simultaneous moments mutual recognition and master/slave dialectic that form and resist each other.

55 Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, Incentives, rewards and behavioural


change Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead', (Royal Borough of Windsor and
Maidenhead, Maidenhead, 2011), p5

56 Response from Freedom of Information Request received on 3 September


2010
57Halton Borough Council, Halton residents rewarded for recycling in borough wide rollout, (Halton Borough Council, Widnes, 2010),
http://www2.halton.gov.uk/content/newsroom/latestnews/1674866?a=5441

58Halton Borough Council, Recycling rewards scheme extended to all Halton


residents, (Halton Borough Council, 2011),
http://www3.halton.gov.uk/news/newsroom/126462/

The state, at both local and central government level, has also pointed out
the importance of mutual recognition. Councillor Rob Polhill, the leader of
Halton council, has said that the councils approach is to reward our
residents for their recycling efforts.59 Eric Pickles, the Secretary of State
for Communities and Local Government said: The best way to encourage
people to recycle is not to punish families, but to encourage and reward
them for going green. Similarly, Caroline Spelman, the Secretary of State
for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs: Windsor and Maidenhead
Council have got it right by rewarding people for voluntarily doing the
right thing not penalising them for doing the wrong thing. 60 What is
interesting however is that both government ministers has placed
recognition by rewards as a better alternative than punishing a failure to
recycle, presumably because the latter denies full recognition by not
treating like adults61, yet they still emphasise the importance of the
amount of waste recycled. Again, it is clear that the plasticity of the
dialectic comprises mutual recognition and master/slave simultaneously.
The tension between the two moments of the relationship suggests that
sometimes the master/slave dialectic will be dominant. For example, just
59Halton Borough Council, Recycling rewards scheme extended to all Halton
residents, (Halton Borough Council, 2011),
http://www3.halton.gov.uk/news/newsroom/126462/
60 Department for Communities and Local Government, Its time for recycling
rewards, not bin taxes, (7 June 2010),
http://www.communities.gov.uk/news/corporate/1608334
61 Eric Pickles, Well boost recycling with a gentle nudge, (The Guardian, 8 June
2010), http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cif-green/2010/jun/08/recyclingreward-scheme

as Sir Stephen required loveless obedience from O 62, some local


authorities have opted for de facto compulsory recycling through the
issuance of fixed penalty notices, under section 46 of the Environment
Protection Act 1990.London Borough of Harrow claimed that dry recycling
rates increased by 50% in tonnage in the first year and London Borough of
Barnet saw an increase of 28%. What was interesting however was that
much of the increase was put down to an education and public awareness
campaign that mentioned that recycling was compulsory. And even
offenders came into line after being issued with the first warning. 63 Other
councils, such Islington Borough Council, Lambeth Borough Council and
Hull County Council, took a tone of reassurance in their literature to
residents by emphasising that only repeat offenders, who had received a
number of warnings, would be fined, not those who had made an honest
mistake or for whatever reason have been unable to put their recycling
bins out a particular week. The threat of punishment seems to have an
impact; most of the local authorities above had not even issued a warning
letter, none had gone so far as to issue a fixed penalty notice, let alone
prosecute and Harrow council said that recycling was compulsory but not

62 Benjamin, 1988, ??
63 Councils hail magic" of compulsory recycling, (Letsrecycle.com, 26 February
2008), http://www.letsrecycle.com/news/latest-news/councils/councils-hail-magicof-compulsory-recycling

enforced.64 It seems that households were choosing to submit, perhaps


more so than if they were offered incentives.

64Responses to Freedom of Information request from London Borough of Barnet


(27 July 2012), London Borough of Bromley (26 July 2012), London Borough of
Harrow (30 July 2012) and London Borough of Tower Hamlets (24 July 2012)

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