If you actually found out how much of your Council Tax goes towards refuse you would be surprised, in our district it is about 60p a week ... out of every pound of Council Tax about 80% of it goes towards fire service, police, roads etc. I do not think there is a chip that could detect what is in a wheelie bin, and there are hundreds that are stolen every year which we all have to end up paying for ... so I think the sentiments behind it are not all evil but merely a way of finding where they go to. Not only that but hundreds of hours are wasted and whole consignments of recycling are sent to landfill because they are contaminated by people not bothering to read what they are supposed to put in there (although I agree it can be confusing) but .... iron bars .. batteries ... and the like are hardly recycling materials and yet they are put into the recycling. Anyway just wanted to put the other side of the case !!