CONSUMER INTELLIGENCE
The diagnostic engine of the platform.
21 min read
The Displacement Risk
Carbon pricing raises the cost of incineration. It does not raise the cost of landfill, export, or fly-tipping. Waste flows to whichever route is cheapest. The cheapest route is always the one nobody measures.
UK carbon pricing adds £48/tonne to incineration but leaves landfill, export, and fly-tipping un-priced. Waste flows downhill. A four-route cost map shows exactly where.
By Economic Analyst
19 min read
The Council Bill
Carbon pricing says the polluter pays. The waste disposal contracts say the council pays. The contracts were drafted first.
PFI waste contracts contain change-in-law clauses that pre-route carbon costs to councils. The bill was addressed before the policy existed. Now the invoice is arriving.
By Jules Moreno
13 min read
The Dry Run
The UK gave waste incinerators a voluntary carbon counting period. That silence is worth £377 million a year — £15 for every household in England.
The UK's voluntary MRV period for waste incineration has no penalty, no register, and no legal requirement. That design has a price: £377 million a year in un-priced emissions.
By Jules Moreno
9 min read
The Substitution — Where Your Recycling Money Actually Goes
Producers are paying GBP 1.1 billion for recycling. Councils are facing GBP 2.3 billion in deficits. The maths suggests a meeting point. The mechanism ensures they never meet.
EPR promises GBP 1.1bn for council recycling. But without ring-fencing, the money disappears into the GBP 2.3bn funding gap. The mechanism is called substitution.
By Jules Moreno
9 min read
Weight Is Destiny
How the UK's glass fee punishes bottles by weight—despite the government model showing volume often limits collection costs.
Glass recycling rates outperform plastic by 50%. Yet EPR fees charge glass 10x more per bottle. The government's own data explains why: they chose the wrong metric.
By Jules Moreno
11 min read
The Invoice Moment
The UK's first Extended Producer Responsibility invoices created a revenue stream expected to raise GBP 1.4-1.5 billion in year 1 that nobody can see, nobody responds to, and nobody can trace to recycling infrastructure.
UK producers received their first EPR invoices in October 2025. Research shows visible taxes change behaviour roughly 7x more than invisible ones. The UK chose invisible.
By Jules Moreno
16 min read
The Arithmetic of Cheap
What Your £8 Shirt Really Costs
An £8 shirt is mathematically impossible. Someone is paying the difference. The Complicity Premium is why we don't ask who.
By Jules Moreno
12 min read
Rewarding the Entrepreneur
The Real Arithmetic of Risk and Reward
CEO pay rose from 20:1 to 399:1 since 1965. The policy changes were warned about, lobbied for, and worked exactly as predicted.
By Jules Moreno