We do not need environmental volunteers

Saturday, 30 August 2008

 We do not need environmental volunteers

The Telegraph reports today that Councils are recruiting residents to become environmental volunteers and report anyone who drops litter, fails to recycle their rubbish properly, or who allows their dog to foul the streets. Why do people need to be recruited to report dog fouling or littering? There is nothing stopping concerned residents from picking up the phone and letting the council know there is a mess to be cleared up, and giving a name if they know who was responsible.

But the only way an environmental volunteer would know if rubbish is being recycled properly is if they start looking in other people's bins. The only word to describe this is snooping. What right have I or anyone else got to grub around in a neighbour's bin to find evidence of failure to recycle, then report it to the council? Will these volunteers take it upon themselves or be encouraged to go around other streets and check bins in this way? This is the most clear sign yet that all branches of government in this country are spiralling out of control.

The servant is making itself into our master and is being encouraged to do so by a government that is hell bent on intruding into every sphere of our lives. This is a deliberate attempt to tap into people's concern for the environment and use it to create an informer network for local government. The tail is wagging the dog and it must be stopped.

Why is there a need to create such an official network of environmental volunteers in this way? Is it recognition that despite ever increasing taxation - both national and local - authorities are failing to do their job properly? Why is it being suggested that these volunteers could go out and talk to groups about recycling? Councils, at our expense, employ environmental officers for just this kind of work. Likewise, police forces have officers to receive tip offs and deal with crimes such as vandalism and graffiti. If unpaid busybodies are going to be doing this work, what are the council officers and police going to be doing? If they were out doing their jobs we pay them to do they would find the problems themselves without the need for tip offs.

So this move is not only unnecessary but unwelcome too, coming as it does hard on the heels of an increasing number people from a variety of agencies and private security companies being given the power to issue fines to members of the public. We are witnessing the creation of a snooper society to augment the growing surveillance society. Where does it end? This government's voyeuristic desire to control the public by monitoring every aspect of our lives is as disturbing as it is intolerable and it needs to be resisted.