Convenience, they say, is key to the success of any recycling service. We must do everything we can to make things as easy as possible for the public, otherwise – silly things – they are apt to toss their recyclables into the residual stream. By giving in to the demand for ease of use, we make it so that even the laziest, most apathetic citizen will pitch in, right?

It’s hard to disagree with this received wisdom, but when it comes to public engagement, we are failing to consider the bigger picture. Public engagement means asking more from people, getting them interested and involved.

By making things as ‘easy as possible’ (read: offering single-stream commingled collections), we’re spoiling the public rotten. The less we ask of them, the less they feel concerned, the more they can return to infantile naval-gazing or squabbling over toys. Indeed, by babying the public, we withdraw their potential to act like proper adults and take away their ability to become contributing members of a resource-conscious community.

Crucially, if we ask people to treat their recyclables like waste, mindlessly casting them into a single bag to be collected and compacted (and dealt with later on, somewhere else, like somebody’s else’s problem), they aren’t connected to the conservation of resources and the environment. But of course, as any grown-up knows, recycling isn’t waste disposal. Asking people to sort recyclables makes them appreciate this point.

Requiring local authorities to focus on baseline performance indicators, tonnages and such the like, has not caught hold of the deeper values that build community. So, perhaps it’s time for politicians to take to the front foot: “Ask not only what your council can do for you, but what you can do for your council.”

I dare say that our citizens might become more responsible, our society bigger and our environment better if we embrace this point of view.