Stealth tax

SIR, - A European directive makes each individual electrical manufacturer responsible for taking back, reusing and disposing of its own products. No EU member has implemented the directive.

It is interesting to note that where EU directives inconvenience the business community, they are ignored. Where equally-absurd directives are issued on household rubbish, they are promptly implemented by the UK. The public is clearly regarded with supercilious contempt by civil servants, especially as the EU directive on reducing landfill can be used to extract a huge stealth tax by way of the ever-increasing landfill tax.

It is time for local councils to rebel instead of cringing and lying. Instead of fake consultations and issuing silly pamphlets, we need local politicians to make clear the ruinous costs of the Government's impractical policies and to say who is paying. This is not the Treasury which, we were once assured, would use a large part of the landfill tax to fund environmental projects.

Long ago Herts was going to have a high-tech, rubbish-to-energy plant - don't mention the fearful word incinerator. Nothing has been done and we are told that increased recycling is the solution. But who is going to sort the mixture from emptied litter bins? Recycling can never exceed 50 per cent of rubbish and the total rubbish produced is increasing fast. The result is that we are running to stand still.

Will Herts County Council answer the simple question - is the amount of rubbish sent to landfill still increasing?

R.E. DURRANT,

Park Avenue, St Albans.