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I Like to Watch You With Your Drawstring Bag
Chris Martin, Coldplay lead
singer founder and
frontman of the CleanScapes waste removal agency, is bidding
for a piece of Seattle's garbage collection contract.
If Martin is allowed to implement what he calls "my best idea, my get-people-riled-up thing," we could all soon be subject to a kind of garbage audit, too. He wants to bring the equivalent of the red-light camera to your front curb. Just as the traffic camera captures you running through a stoplight, CleanScapes' incriminating photos would catch you improperly disposing of a milk carton. (It belongs in the recycling bin.)
"We could do it the nice way," he says, meaning his company would e-mail you pictures of your detritus, along with helpful information about separating out recyclables. Or, he says, CleanScapes could send the pictures on to municipal inspectors, and "the city could enforce its own laws." (While the city has sent warning letters, no fines have ever been issued, according to Seattle Public Utilities.)
Read the whole article: It's the heartwarming story of how this well-bred liberal, scouting about for a way to change the world, stumbled upon great ideas like this.
|10.2.07 @ 8:24AM|#
"I know it sounds far-fetched, but I'm convinced that
[Dumpsters] hide a lot of problems,"
Well, as long as he's convinced, that's good enough for me!
Now, Chris, about that visually polluting shirt you are wearing...I
am convinced it indicates...
Syloson of Samos|10.2.07 @ 8:25AM|#
Why is recycling better than merely putting the stuff into landfills? BTW, I'll grant that recycling aluminum makes a great deal of sense.
ed|10.2.07 @ 8:32AM|#
"We could do it the nice way," he says
Or I could hire someone to break that mo-fo's kneecaps. His
choice.
|10.2.07 @ 8:36AM|#
I thought Coldplay sucked before, but now...
Why is recycling better than merely putting the stuff into
landfills? BTW, I'll grant that recycling aluminum makes a great
deal of sense.
It depends on the material. Metals and glass are good for recycling
because they cost very little to turn back into raw materials.
That's why you see homeless people grabbing cans and bottles from
the trash; they actually make a profit on these items.
Paper and plastic, however, due to their complex chemical
structure, don't break down into base elements, and you spend far
more energy trying to recycle them.
For you greenies out there:
More energy use = more fossil fuels spent on power
Therefore, recycling (or more accurately, trying to recycle) paper
and plastics are bad.
|10.2.07 @ 8:36AM|#
In Coralville, IA and Bloomington, IN, if a plastic bit somehow
finds its way in amongst the tin cans, the friendly recycling truck
fellows will leave the whole kit and caboodle on the curb.
Then you come home and find your (mostly but apparently not
entirely) properly sorted recycling has been blown down the
street.
And since you're only given one bin and they only come around twice
a month, it's doubly difficult to keep the recycling in order the
next time.
It's also sweet of them to leave the scummy paper sorting bags
behind. They must be recycled, they can't be placed in the regular
trash, but they won't be picked up if they were "reused" to hold
the remainder of the recycling.
O_o
Louisville is sweet. We've got big recycling centers to which you
BYO crap, and we can sell our aluminum for $0.77 a pound.
Oh! and I heard about an artists' community starting up on a
defunct Indiana (where they do some things right) landfill. The
artists can use all the methane they want for running their kilns
and blast furnaces. Smart, neh?
|10.2.07 @ 8:48AM|#
CleanScapes' incriminating photos would catch you improperly
disposing of a milk carton. (It belongs in the recycling
bin.)
I don't see how this would work in a city with public trash cans
everywhere to prevent littering.
The Artist Formerly Known as T|10.2.07 @ 8:48AM|#
"He wants to bring the equivalent of the red-light camera to
your front curb. Just as the traffic camera captures you running
through a stoplight, CleanScapes' incriminating photos would catch
you improperly disposing of a milk carton."
Next up, a red light camera for your toilet to enforce Sheryl
Crow's new eco effort "2 squares per person per flush".
Incriminating photos will be mailed to houses of people using more
than 2 squares, as well as posted to a community website for all to
see!
Hippobotomus|10.2.07 @ 8:50AM|#
I just put all my garbage, unsorted, into a single bag and put it in front of Dondero's house.
|10.2.07 @ 8:55AM|#
Now wait a minute. Hippobotomus is a robotic horse... shouldn't
it be Hippobottomus?
just sayin'
|10.2.07 @ 8:55AM|#
...improperly disposing of a milk carton...
How do you "properly" dispose of a Coldplay CD? .40 S&W, .45,
or 12 ga.?
|10.2.07 @ 8:58AM|#
I vote all uses of the word "green" be removed from the English language in all ways other than describing the color of something, certain vegetables, and as an expression of age.
|10.2.07 @ 9:05AM|#
Any "industry" that requires free labor to be profitable is a
scam.
Garbage cameras. "Friendly" letters. The city paying someone to
watch what you throw away.
Nope. No slippery slope here at all.
(The sad part is, I'd probably recycle the stuff that made sense to
recycle, but now all I want to do is gather all my trash up and
dump it on this fuckhead's lawn.)
|10.2.07 @ 9:10AM|#
Well, at least we've finally found an example of privitization of public services that Reasonoids are not in favor of.
Larry Anderson|10.2.07 @ 9:12AM|#
How do you "properly" dispose of a Coldplay CD? .40 S&W,
.45, or 12 ga.?
1 1/4 lb block of TNT, 1 #9 commercial blasting cap, 6 feet of slow
burn fuse, duct tape.
|10.2.07 @ 9:14AM|#
More energy use = more fossil fuels spent on
power
Perhaps, how much is used to take trees to paper? Can one treat a
point source better than a whole bunch of distributed sources? How
much fuel is consumed by the compactor in the landfill, the truck
driving it? Such trite and misleading statements are damn near as
bad as the Brady Bunch linking global warming to the "assault
weapon" ban and are unbecoming of civilized discourse.
I tend to be a severe recycling type, I admit. I do it because I
believe it's right. I don't think that such things like mandatory
recycling is appropriate, though, and nothing even remotely like
camera enforcment is in any way justifiable.
Does drive me crazy though to see what people drop in recycling
bins, driving to the station, when we have curbside pickup for
trash which doesn't cost anything separate as it's in the taxes.
I've seen weatherstripping, paint buckets, computer monitors,
styrofoam, etc. If you're going to throw it away, why drive it X
miles and make a bunch more trash (as they'll put the entire
dumpster in the landfill rather than sort it, most likely) when you
can just put it on the curb? It seems like either people are
intentionally trying to be assholes, or they're just absolutely
freaking stupid.
Speaking of which, has anyone brought suit against Ditech yet?
"People are smart"-like hell they are, false advertising.
|10.2.07 @ 9:14AM|#
Well, at least we've finally found an example of
privitization of public services that Reasonoids are not in favor
of.
I don't think government contracts to enforce government
regulations necessarily qualify as privatization.
ed|10.2.07 @ 9:15AM|#
CleanScapes could send the pictures on to municipal
inspectors, and
"the city could enforce its own laws."
"You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair they made the Jews
wear."
|10.2.07 @ 9:30AM|#
crimethink has it right. were they to start auditing my garbage
where i live i'll just start tossing it in the bin in the park or
at work. really, not a big effort. i just have to be sure that no
mail or anything with my name on it is included.
I am a huge proponent of an end to curbside pick up and the
creation of municipal depots where you drop it off. and yes, you
should be able to get money for your aluminum cans.
|10.2.07 @ 9:32AM|#
"In Coralville, IA and Bloomington, IN, if a plastic bit
somehow finds its way in amongst the tin cans, the friendly
recycling truck fellows will leave the whole kit and caboodle on
the curb.
"Then you come home and find your (mostly but apparently not
entirely) properly sorted recycling has been blown down the street.
..."
(REST OF DEPRESSING POST SNIPPED)
Surely some think tank somewhere has calculated the total value of
the labor hours Americans devote to all this stuff, and compared it
to the actual economic return that results from mandatory recycling
-- yes? And surely it's been shown to be a loss, economically
speaking?
(If so, then...) All the labor we're forced to devote must be for
some other cause. What is it? Making our weekly sacrifice to the
Earth God? Paying our penance to same? I know it's a cliche at this
point to compare environmentalism to religion, but there's a reason
it became a cliche in the first place.
joe|10.2.07 @ 9:38AM|#
Way too simplistic, Taktix.
For one thing, energy inputs are not the only factor to consider.
There is the acreage of trees not clearcut for pulp, for
example.
Second, there are different types of recycling. HDPE bottles to
HDPE bottles is one thing, but newer processes like plasticization
(sp?) allows all sorts of plastics to be recycled together into a
building block material - much less complicated and energy
intensive.
Ditto with paper - are we talking about bleaching mixed paper back
to office paper? Or to some kind of card stock?
|10.2.07 @ 9:46AM|#
"Metals and glass are good for recycling because they cost very
little to turn back into raw materials"
Yes for metals but not for glass. It takes more resources to
transpot the glass and recycle it than it does to make new glass.
Glass is basically heated sand so it is not like we are using some
dwindling resource to make it.
Houshold recycling is one of the biggest shams ever purpetraited on
the public. Because you have to send two trucks out instead of one
and you have to sort the stuff, recycling more than doubles the
resources necessary for garbage collection with the only real
benefit being a marginal reduction in landfill use. it really
doesn't help the environment. Household recycling is for today's
secular greens what saying Hail Mary's used to be for devout
Catholics; something that makes them feel good and feel that they
are paying for their sins but of little consiquence in the real
world.
It has of course become much worse in the past few years because
recycling programs have become an excuse to violate our privacy and
control how we live. Whenever there is some intrusive government
form of green dogooderism, just ask yourself one question; if they
wanted to invade your privacy and control your actions like this in
the name of terrorism, what would the people advocating it have to
say? The answer is that they would have a fit. The same people who
wear tinfoil hats and are convinced George Bush is listening to
their telphone calls and planning to send them to GUITMO, have no
problems rumaging through your garbage and punishing you for not
living a PC lifestyle.
|10.2.07 @ 9:49AM|#
Great quote:
...A half-hour or so into the [dumpster diving], a crew member
tears open a pair of bags piled high with recyclable paper, and a
ripple of excitement runs through the group. They're like
cops who've just found the rock of cocaine they knew was hiding
somewhere.
Yeah, they've just found another use for SWAT teams.
|10.2.07 @ 9:55AM|#
"...A half-hour or so into the [dumpster diving], a crew member
tears open a pair of bags piled high with recyclable paper, and a
ripple of excitement runs through the group. They're like cops
who've just found the rock of cocaine they knew was hiding
somewhere.
Yeah, they've just found another use for SWAT teams."
Damn straight they have. Don't think it is not coming. Europe is
crazy about this stuff. They haven't gotten to swat teams but
Europeans tend to be better behaved drones than Americans are. If I
want to pay to have my garbage picked up I should be able to. This
issue goes at the basis of how we live and our freedom to make
choices. If the government can stay out of my bedroom, why the hell
can't it stay out of my kitchen trashcan?
|10.2.07 @ 9:57AM|#
"John -
2 trucks? Not where I live"
Most places it does. I would like to see how that works in your
neighborhood. You would have to have a special truck that has a
compartment for the recyclables.
|10.2.07 @ 10:00AM|#
It takes more resources to transpot the glass and recycle it
than it does to make new glass.
Maybe, but does it take more energy to transport the glass and
recycle it than it would to transport the glass to the landfill,
transport that much sand to the glass factory, and make new glass
in its place?
You need to put all of the relevant variables in on both sides of
the equation.
|10.2.07 @ 10:02AM|#
Reinmoose,
We have three trucks that come through. (Trash, recyclables, yard
waste.)
|10.2.07 @ 10:09AM|#
"Maybe, but does it take more energy to transport the glass and
recycle it than it would to transport the glass to the landfill,
transport that much sand to the glass factory, and make new glass
in its place?"
No it really doesn't. Glass is incredibly cheap to make. Morover,
glass is not what is filling landfills. It is old newspapers and
diapers as much as anything. If you want to do something about the
landfill problem, forget recycling and ban mass mailings and
mandate smaller newspapers. That would go a long way to reducing
the amount of trash people produce.
|10.2.07 @ 10:10AM|#
> The same people who wear tinfoil hats and are convinced
George Bush is listening to their telphone calls ...
I hope Chris Martin will make sure they put their tin foil hats in
the corect recycle bin when they are done with them!
|10.2.07 @ 10:11AM|#
I thought glass recycling made sense because of sulfur release
during raw sand -> glass processing. (Or, rather, would make
sense if the externalities of sulfur release were greater than the
economic cost of recycling vs. raw materials. (I'm not saying I
know the answer to that question, and the Internet seems to be of
little help.))
Also, my area will not take milk cartons (i.e. wax or plastic
coated paper for recycling.) Would I still be reported by Citizen
Martin?
|10.2.07 @ 10:13AM|#
I've been wondering why they don't just take the newspapers and phone books to the composting field with the yard waste. Lord knows you can never have too much good soil.
|10.2.07 @ 10:18AM|#
joe,
Almost all printing is done with soy ink (at least the black
lettering) so I can't see a reason why not. Also, why can't we put
food waste into the yard scrap bin? It's all going to rot in a
field for use by the city parks. (Quite a bit of compost / garden
soil is made with restaurant food waste, so there's probably no
health issue.)
|10.2.07 @ 10:19AM|#
"I thought glass recycling made sense because of sulfur release
during raw sand -> glass processing."
The problem is that you either re-melt the glass in a furnace which
presumably would create just as much sulfur or you wash and reuse
the glass which creates water pollution. It is a tough nut to
crack. I think people ought to stop worrying about glass and go for
the low hanging fruit of mass mailings, newspapers and phonebooks.
It would have the added benefit of ending junk mail. I am serious.
I would stop bulk rate shipping. Make everything have to be mailed
first class and bad private companies like FEDEX from filling the
void. I would also ban the practice of throwing advertising
circulars in people's yards and ban the placing of phonebooks on
people's doors. If you want them, you should have to go and get
them. My guess is that in the day and age of 411.com and if you
made it the PC thing to do, most people wouldn't get them.
|10.2.07 @ 10:23AM|#
Banning bulk mail would put some of the joy and excitement back
into checking the mail.
Of course, once a month I know the ultimate mailbox joy. My wife
got me a membership to the Bacon of the Month Club for my
birthday.
Highway|10.2.07 @ 10:25AM|#
I've been wondering why they even deliver phone books to
everyone anymore. Is there some big printing racket with them? You
use it what, 2, 3 times a year?
Put the resources used in making phone books into beefing up
internet directories and tell people to use them. It's gotta be
better than delivering 10 pounds of paper to everyone every
year.
|10.2.07 @ 10:30AM|#
Warming up the crystal ball... I see, it's getting clearer now... Ahh, yes, I see a large increase of illegal dumping in Seattle's future. Just think how good I'dd be if I had Gypsy blood in me!
|10.2.07 @ 10:33AM|#
Re: the article
I would never wade through heaps of trash in shorts.
Just... ewwwwww
|10.2.07 @ 10:34AM|#
More proof that the only difference between liberals and
conservatives is what laws they want to bash my head in with.
They all still want a piece of us, probably why they cooperate so
well on the drug war, they each want us in chains, just for
different reasons.
Rhywun|10.2.07 @ 10:34AM|#
If you want to do something about the landfill problem,
forget recycling and ban mass mailings and mandate smaller
newspapers.
Brilliant! Kills two or three birds with one stone.
One of the first things Bloomberg did as NYC mayor was end one of
our recycling streams (I think it was paper?), citing the fact that
it was losing money. That didn't last very long and I don't
remember what supposedly made it worthwhile again.
And what I really want to know is, if we're so goddamn clever, why
doesn't there exist a *machine* to sort our garbage? How difficult
could it possibly be to feed all garbage through a machine and pick
out the recyclables?
JBinMO|10.2.07 @ 10:35AM|#
Sticking his nose in other peoples business, he is just following in Washingtons foot steps.
Rhywun|10.2.07 @ 10:39AM|#
Bacon of the Month Club
I think I just threw up a little. Since the advent of turkey bacon,
regular bacon kind of grosses me out. Or it could be that most of
the bacon I encounter is crap--underdone and full of fat.
T|10.2.07 @ 10:43AM|#
Rhywun,
We have those down here where I live. They're called "illegal
immigrants". Pretty cheap, too. If one breaks, you can always get
another.
More seriously, automation of the process is possible. It's just,
like many automation tasks, god awful expensive. Most
municipalities don't have or won't spend the kind of money it takes
to have a workable solution. Besides, why build and maintain a
machine when you can browbeat suckers the public into
doing the work for you?
JBinMO|10.2.07 @ 10:44AM|#
"weatherstripping, paint buckets, computer monitors, styrofoam,
etc."
People probably think that stuff can be recycled.
|10.2.07 @ 10:54AM|#
SugarFree,
I know that you aren't supposed to put meat in the compost bin,
because it will attract pests.
John's got a good idea about mass mailings.
Rhywun|10.2.07 @ 10:57AM|#
If one breaks, you can always get another.
I thought of that too, but I didn't want to open up that can of
worms.
why build and maintain a machine
True. Like so many other little freedoms, we'll only get it back
if/when the country goes to pot and more important matters rise to
the surface.
|10.2.07 @ 11:30AM|#
How do you "properly" dispose of a Coldplay CD? .40 S&W,
.45, or 12 ga.?
Remove "a" and "CD" and then make your choice.
|10.2.07 @ 12:02PM|#
I know that you aren't supposed to put meat in the compost
bin, because it will attract pests.
Freegans?
|10.2.07 @ 12:21PM|#
Damn freegan squirrels, they got opposable thumbs and
everything!
You ought see how they chatter at the Running Dogs of
capitalism.
|10.2.07 @ 12:22PM|#
I've been wondering why they don't just take the newspapers and phone books to the composting field with the yard waste. Lord knows you can never have too much good soil.
Actually newspaper can be shredded for cellulose insulating
material. You have to use more to get the equivalent R-value as
fiberglass but it's much cheaper.
Home Depot even includes lending a machine to blow the stuff into
your attic if you buy it there.
I know that you aren't supposed to put meat in the compost bin, because it will attract pests.
I've heard that it is actually possible to include meat in compost,
you just have to do it right.
Trouble is large chunks will attract critters who'll dig into the
compost pile to eat it.
There is also a problem with undesirable bacterial growth* I
believe. But I'm fairly sure properly aging the material takes care
of that.
*as opposed to the desirable bacterial growth you want to
occur in a compost pile.
|10.2.07 @ 12:36PM|#
"I know that you aren't supposed to put meat in the compost bin,
because it will attract pests.
Freegans?"
That is a problem. Usely a few shotgun blasts over their heads will
run them off. Unfortunetately, they just wait until dark and come
back again. They are worse than dogs, you can't even call the pound
on them.
|10.2.07 @ 12:40PM|#
I live near Seattle, where they force highly paid professionals
to sort through their trash like raccoons.
My sister lives in Sacramento, where they put all their trash into
one giant bin. Waste Disposal takes it all to a central processing
plant where it is sorted.
The Sacramento model is vastly superior, but it doesn't make people
feel good, so they would never allow it in Seattle.
|10.2.07 @ 12:40PM|#
Isaac,
My goal is to make the bacteria in my compost bin so hardy that I
can just feed paper in there like a shredder.
Les|10.2.07 @ 12:42PM|#
Is there really a "landfill problem?" From what I've read,
there's plenty of landfill space available and the new ones are
safer than ever, even producing electricity.
Still, I think
plasma conversion will make landfills and recycling obsolete,
hopefully in my lifetime.
|10.2.07 @ 12:43PM|#
And what I really want to know is, if we're so goddamn
clever, why doesn't there exist a *machine* to sort our garbage?
How difficult could it possibly be to feed all garbage through a
machine and pick out the recyclables?
Such machines already exist for the recycling of junked cars. I
watched a very interesting "Modern Marvels" program about it a few
months back. Only a handful of plastic parts are not ultimately
recycled.
|10.2.07 @ 12:44PM|#
Mass mailings are profitable for the post office. First class mail isn't. Just sayin'.
Ms. Rand|10.2.07 @ 12:45PM|#
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. When there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
|10.2.07 @ 12:48PM|#
I actually like the raccoon that lives in the backyard, but then
he's never figured out how to get in the trashcans. He seems
content to run off with a few things from my compost heap, but
since I gave up on growing vegetables the compost heap just sort of
just sits there anyway.
OK, for you bigger city types... what's the problem with the
homeless and other "scavengers" taking recyclables from bins to
sell? Is it the mess they make? Are they somehow cutting into the
city's recycling "profits?"
Disclaimer: Scavengers of all types are welcome to my refuse, as
long as they don't make a mess of it.
|10.2.07 @ 12:53PM|#
Les - yes, there is no shortage of landfill space. Back in the
1980's there was a temporary local landfill shortage in the
northeast, which was vastly overblown.
In reality, we could dig a one mile square hole in the desert of
Nevada a hundred feet deep and it would take over 1000 years to
fill. As anyone who's ever driven across this country can tell you,
the last thing we're running out of is open space...
|10.2.07 @ 1:01PM|#
It depends on what you mean by "landfill problem."
We could take some buildable land in housing-short,
open-space-threatened eastern Massachusetts and use it for landfill
space. Sure, there are plots of land we could take out of the
market for that use. But is that a good idea?
|10.2.07 @ 1:08PM|#
Bronwyn | October 2, 2007, 8:55am | #
Now wait a minute. Hippobotomus is a robotic horse... shouldn't it
be Hippobottomus?
just sayin'
Absolutely. For context...
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/122766.html#798185
|10.2.07 @ 1:10PM|#
For some facts on recycling glass
http://www.gpi.org/recycling/
Saves energy
Using cullet allows the glass container industry to reduce energy
input to its furnaces. Energy costs drop about 2-3% for every 10%
cullet used in the manufacturing process.
Decreases processing by-products
The glass recycling process is a closed-loop system, creating no
additional waste or by-products.
Lessens greenhouse gas emissions
For container glass, a relative 10% increase in cullet reduces
particulates by 8%, nitrogen oxide by 4%, and sulfur oxides by 10%.
And, for every six tons of recycled container glass used, one ton
of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is reduced (Source: Glass
Recycling, "Kirk-Othmer Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology" 4th
edition, 1999).
Don't believe John's illinformed hype.
|10.2.07 @ 1:18PM|#
"weatherstripping, paint buckets, computer
monitors, styrofoam, etc."
People probably think that stuff can be recycled.
Much of it can be. Your point?
|10.2.07 @ 1:24PM|#
What is it with phonebooks? This is a tool that has been so
completely replaced by the internet and 411 that I am shocked that
they still exist. Every year I get three phone books and within
hours I take the phonebooks and dump them in the recycling bin.
I've called the company that distributes them and they seem
completely surprised that anyone would not want them. Ugh ... and
yet the next year - three more books...
/rant
|10.2.07 @ 1:34PM|#
Disclaimer: Scavengers of all types are welcome to my
refuse, as long as they don't make a mess of it.
Is there really a difference between the wino collecting tin cans
and the entrepreneur salvaging a treasure laden shipwreck? In
degree only, I'd say.
|10.2.07 @ 1:35PM|#
Here in gubermint land in Montgomery county Maryland, there are
laws about recycling a certain percentage of paper used at a
location. Because most of the paper we have contains trade secret
information and must be officially shredded, we do not meet our
recycling quota.
I got a bonus for my idea - recycl our office (recycled) paper
until we meet our recycling quota.
Rhywun|10.2.07 @ 1:52PM|#
what's the problem with the homeless and other "scavengers"
taking recyclables from bins to sell?
Yep, the mess. I don't care when they take stuff from the bin
because the items are loose in there. It's after the landlord
brings the bags to the curb that I have a problem. They tear the
bags open and sometimes spread shit all over the place.
|10.2.07 @ 2:40PM|#
ChrisO, Joe
So Modern Marvels isn't all about Sippy Cups these days?
Awesome.
Seriously, though:
How do you "properly" dispose of a Coldplay CD? .40 S&W, .45,
or 12 ga.?
.308--the pretty shards can be used to make Christmas
decorations.
|10.2.07 @ 3:07PM|#
"OK, for you bigger city types... what's the problem with the
homeless and other "scavengers" taking recyclables from bins to
sell? Is it the mess they make? Are they somehow cutting into the
city's recycling "profits?"
Nothing except that they also take your bills and sell them to
people who then steal your identity. I used to live in Atlanta and
we had a lot of homeless people who scavenged the dumpstes in a
very professional way. They never seemed to take away any cans,
just bags of papers.
|10.2.07 @ 6:26PM|#
You will find that the city's rationale for keeping the homeless
(and others) from taking recyclables from bins at the curb is that
once there they are city property and a source of revenue.
As long as they are on your property they are yours. You are
perfectly free in most places to try to find a buyer for any of
your waste. So far only aluminum has any kind of market that
individuals have access to. The earnings from bottles comes from
state mandated bottle deposits. In Florida where there are no
bottle deposits the homeless only go after aluminum cans.
Cactus|10.3.07 @ 1:55AM|#
I happen to live out in the sticks where most everyone has a burn barrel and burns their trash. The nonburnable stuff like metal and glass gets hauled to the landfill. You burn all that is burnable and the glass and metal for me I have to take to the landfill only every couple of years. I clean it before throwing it away and store it long term in a metal bin that gets loaded in the back of the truck. I take it to the landfill and it costs a whole 10 dollars or something to dump. If you're really ambitious you can toss your aluminum separately and melt it down. Lots of folks around here will do that. Me I'm not into pawing through my trash like a starving raccoon. Burnable and nonburnable and that is it.
|10.3.07 @ 4:00PM|#
Nobody paws through trash!
You put some trash in your trash can, and other trash in a bin.
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