Paul are you sure someone is not pulling your leg here?
Well, I'm left with a little egg on my face, as I've done a little digging it does appear that this story originated as an April 1st joke. The Belgian government has apparently completely denied any such proposal.
But doesn't the mere fact that I (and apparently many other people too) actually thought this could be true show just how far we've gotten with governments trying to control and tax every aspect of our lives?
It's like the battery issue here a few years ago which I can confirm was absolutely true. We already had a very efficient and entirely voluntary scheme for recycling the acid and lead from old car batteries. Scrap yards would accept them and just send them off for processing.
Then the heavy hand of government stepped in in some areas and implemented an "environmental protection" scheme which involved a complex system of issuing a separate document for each and every scrap battery collected. It also imposed a "recycling fee" for each and every battery collected which exceeded the scrap value of the battery itself.
The inevitable result was that batteries ended up being dumped in ditches etc. because scrap yards -- quite understandably -- simply refused to take them any more.
