Curly, surely it's only right that people pay for the amount of waste they produce. Currently, low waste producers, paying the same council tax as higher producers, are effectively subsidising the irresponsible and wasteful behaviour of others.

Councils pay for landfill by the ton, so it's reasonable that they should charge householders similarly.

As an alternative, we could reward good performers with council tax rebates, so instead of 'polluter pays' we would have 'conserver gains'.

However, we also need to reduce the waste that we produce. Tons of what ends up in landfill comes from useless packaging, often from supermarkets (why shrinkwrap bananas, Tesco?). Then there's our throwaway lifestyle which, for example, dumps mountains of disposable nappies everyyear.

A system of waste charging has been in place in Germany for two years now and it's resulted in a massive jump in recycling, and unexpectedly, a change in behaviour by the supermarkets. Green groups encouraged shoppers to leave the pointless plastic packaging in the shop. This change in shopping habits (and the extra amount the supermarkets ended up paying to be dumped) prompted shops to reduce the amount and type of packaging used meaning less plastic, and more recyclable cardboard and paper.
 

I still do not think it right to punish families just because they naturally produce more waste than couples or single occupiers. However, I agree strongly with your notion of rewarding those who recycle or conserve, incentive always tends to be a better way forward than punitive legislation or taxation.