I don't understand your logic about it being a loss-maker, Roz. Imagine if taxis were run by local authorities, and you could get a taxi anywhere for, say, ?2, with the rest of the cost being subsidised through taxes. If you then privatised the taxis and got rid of the subsidy, and prices went up to the ones we know today, society would still be paying the same price overall, as the taxes for the subsidy would no longer need to be collected. My point is that privately run refuse collection companies would simply have to set their prices realistically and they'd make a profit.

They would need to be licensed and monitored to check that they meet reasonable standards, such as meeting recycling targets, with fines or revokations of their licences if they didn't. Many privately run businesses do this already, for example restaurants have to meet standards for hygiene.

I'm not convinced either that the problem of fly tipping couldn't be largely overcome. It could be compulsory to have a refuse collection contract, in a similar way that it's compulsory to have insurance if you drive a car, with punishments if you fail to pay.

Refuse collection may, for most people and most councils, be a service that meets reasonable standards (though I recently saw a couple of Lewisham employees on London Road inexplicably attempting to tip the contents of one wheelie bin into another and spilling litter all over the pacement in the act), but that doesn't necessarily mean that the service is good value. It's not that hard to imagine getting the same or a better value service after privatisation.

I'll admit that it might be a bit less green for several trucks to go down the same street...can't have everything.

Does anyone know whether privatisation of refuse collection has ever actually been tried, either in the UK or any other countries?