Students rebel against digital NCEA exam that requires new laptops Funny old weekend where I flirted with getting sick. I was hot and cold and sneezy and not quite with it. I thought it had passed when I heard something and I thought I was still a bit under the weather.

I’m pretty sure I heard someone saying that they’re going to clean up the country by making it more expensive to take rubbish to the dump. So I stopped for a moment. Cleared my ears and listened again, and to my surprise, realise I had heard what I had heard.

Green MP and Associate Minister for the Environment, Eugenie Sage was announcing a new policy on waste, at the Party's annual conference, which has been signed off by Cabinet.

The goal is to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfills in New Zealand, as the amount of waste at landfills increases worldwide. So the public will be asked whether they think the current levy of $10 per tonne on waste taken to landfills, should be higher. And as only 11 per cent of landfills are presently covered by the $10 levy and the Greens are looking at expanding that to all of the country's landfills.

Eugenie Sage said such levies provided an economic incentive to divert materials away from landfill. Well, that much is true but is it an economic incentive to make less rubbish? I can’t see it and so there is the fear that less rubbish will go to the expensive tip and where on earth will it end out?

Big commercial operators and councils will figure it out and suck up the cost. But the average punter with their trailer loads will be tempted to find a gully somewhere. The last time I went to the tip I paid 38 bucks for the load and that made my eyebrow arch. 50 bucks would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for many.

Now local councils have been wanting an increase to the levies for ages and our levies are cheaper than many around the world, almost half that of the UK for instance, but an increase in tax is not the answer to change our rubbish behaviour.

I’ve been becoming a little suspicious of the Green’s environmental methods for a while now. You’d think that a party that calls itself Green would be the hands down experts on the complex issues surrounding our waste, and our processing of it. But they just seem simplistic on it all. Waste is bad. Tax it.

In announcing the plastic bag ban, Eugenie Sage had to admit that biodegradable bags were also part of the ban because the country does not have the kit to process them. And as part of this job and looking at other countries I’ve also been impressed with modern incineration practices. But the Greens won’t be going anywhere near that because in their simple world view burning is bad. Full stop.

Rubbish is a filthy business and sorting it out means you have to get your hands dirty. So rather than taxing us for being human, how about you invest in some gear that will get rid of the mess.