It's weird - even kinda freaky - when you discover that your wheelie garbage bins have been bugged with electronic devices. So imagine the reaction of the British population when they discovered that up to 500,000 garbage bins so far have been installed with RFID tags, and that the rest of the household garbage bin population would follow suit in the next couple of years. And that no one told them about it.

The RFIDs are part of a garbage-tracking system being pushed by British local councils, and spearheaded by two German firms experienced in operating similar systems across Europe. Each tag identifies its owning household. When garbage trucks come to pick the bins up, they weigh each bin and register the corresponding result for later uploading into a database. Town hall officials claim the system is meant to improve recycling efficiency and reduce non-recyclable volumes by tracking the volume of garbage generated by households. Critics claim it's part of a plan to fine households for generating "too much" non-recyclable waste.

What's scary to us is not that there are tags attached to the garbage bins. If they were listening devices - in other words, real bugs - then we'd freak for the obvious reasons, but they're not. We also have no protest on taxing polluters, or incentive schemes for waste reduction. The UK needs it - the European Council has set targets for reducing landfill waste in member countries. Heck, we all need it - it helps to have a helping hand in tracking our waste generation; the data could prove useful in adopting and funding effective garbage reduction schemes and strategies (that, aside from penalizing offenders, but that's another debate entirely).

Besides, when you think of it, you don't even need the tags for this kind of thing. You just have to register the home address, even on paper, every time its waste bin gets weighed and dumped. (And make sure no one messes with the records while doing so). The RFID tags, by the looks of it, is meant to automate the process.

What's really scary is that this was done secretly, without the clearance or benefit of public debate at the council (or, it seems, even national) level. The only reason why the British media picked up on the story is that one council member let it slip during a Rotary Club dinner, one month after the bins were tagged. This isn't even intelligence to begin with, it's environmental security. Waste tracking isn't something that gets slapped with an "Eyes Only-Compartmentalized Distribution" classification.

The battle to save the environment requires a cooperative victory. Something like this doesn't build the kind of trust required for that kind of victory. Eco-friendliness need not oppose person-friendliness. We hope, both for the sake of environmentalism and respect for individual privacy, they sort this mess out, like we sort our recyclables from the non's.