A new law on light pollution?

Light pollution is to become a statutory offence, enabling people to take on neighbours whose lights stop them from sleeping.
Under
a Bill published yesterday, anyone who finds that artificial light
emitting from premises is "prejudicial to health or a nuisance" will be
able to complain to the council.

I’ve always found that curtains help, 50,000 fines seem a little over the top. However, I will admit to being a touch involved if you wish. Some 50% of the light that you can see from space comes from a form of light bulb called a "metal halide" one. We are pretty much the monopoly supplier (no, not for any bad reason, just that it’s a small market that really only supports one player) of a vital component of such bulbs, scandium. So I can claim a small part in fully 50% of the light that you can see in this picture:

Satellite picture showing the  light pollution from built up areas

Y’see, I’m one of those evil types that actually benefits from increased pollution. Go one, get out there and install some more bulbs!

I’m also intruiged by this:

Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, said:
"People want to live in communities that are not blighted by litter,
graffiti and fly posters and we should not have to tolerate the
anti-social behaviour that leads to abandoned, burnt-out cars."
But
waste experts say the Government is still a long way from controlling
the problem of abandoned cars, caused by the falling price of scrap and
the cost of complying with EU environmental legislation.

Further proof that Government is the problem, not the solution.
The tightening up of rules on how a car may be scrapped has led to and end of life vehicle (as it is known in the jargon) falling from a positive value of 50 quid to a negative one of 50 quid. It just isn’t all that surprising that these things now clog up the streets rather than obedient little serfs drive them to scrap yards where they get stung.
What is so tragic is that there is a very easy solution, one much easier than greater fines for abanodoning them, and yet still maintaining the desired recycling rules (that they themselves are absurd is a topic for another day).
Get the economic incentives right and the problem will solve itself.
When people got 25-50 quid for delivering a car to a scrappie, they did so and we had few abandoned or burnt out cars. So we know what level of incentive is needed to encourage this behaviour. OK, so, pay people to deliver cars to scrappies. One could fund it out of the rates, would be cheaper than the 300-500 quid it costs a council to clear stuff up now. One could stick 50 quid on the cost of a new car. One could stick 20 quid on the price of any car sale. One could fund it out of general taxation. All these alternatives would also have a further beneficial efect. They would make clear the additional costs being imposed by further tightening of the regulations on disposal. Must pull the engine out before shredding the steel? Costs money that, up goes the clearly observable subsidy to 75 pounds a car. Um, are the benefits to the environment worth that extra cost?
What an interesting idea eh? A method of making plain the costs of environmental regulation.