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These kinds of punitive policies have a very obvious side-effect. You dump the garbage in a ravine or stream, or somewhere easy to dump. And so what if you get

These kinds of punitive policies have a very obvious side-effect. You dump the garbage in a ravine or stream, or somewhere easy to dump. And so what if you get caught. You get fined a few hundred dollars, where you saved 5x that by dumping. The problem with recycling is it's recycling... There's a reason why the phrase is "Reduce, Reuse, and finally Recycle". The upstream firms are Reducing their costs with little regard to reducing environmental impact. The upstream firms guarantee you can't reuse - it's a missed sale. So, you percolate through the layers, and then recycling is this all important thing.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
This. Where I used to live the only scrap yard would only accept nonferrous metals and the towns would charge for scrap metal. Washing machines on the side of the road was a routine sight, or it was until a new scrap yard that would accept just about anything metal opened up. edit: I'm struggling to wrap my mind around why this is getting down-voted. I'm providing a real world example of the behavior the person I'm replying to described. I'm not endorsing dumping things on the side of the road. Do people seriously not believe that above a certain price point people will illegally dump their trash and risk the fine?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I mean with scrap metal or whatever it's one thing, but your weekly trash? Unless the cost is exorbitant people are probably just going to pay to have the bags for their trash. Like I think in Japan they were about $5; I'm not going to start trucking my fish bones to the local stream to save five bucks.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    It all really depends on how much painpoint there is regarding refuse/recycling. The more rules, fines, restrictions the state implements, the less people will comply. And lack of compliance means stuff is thrown away in others' yards, dumped on the commons, or otherwise hidden to the nature of the trash. Because of onerousness with local ordnances with regarding paint, many people just end up hiding the containers in dog food bags. I've seen quite a few of those already in the local dumpster.
- mike_ivanov 8y ago
  I see this a lot across British Columbia Lower Mainland, but rather with old mattresses and soft furniture. It's relatively expensive to recycle those, so people just dump them in bushes and even on random people's front yards.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago

This. Where I used to live the only scrap yard would only accept nonferrous metals and the towns would charge for scrap metal. Washing machines on the side of the road was a routine sight, or it was until a new scrap yard that would accept just about anything metal opened up. edit: I'm struggling to wrap my mind around why this is getting down-voted. I'm providing a real world example of the behavior the person I'm replying to described. I'm not endorsing dumping things on the side of the road. Do people seriously not believe that above a certain price point people will illegally dump their trash and risk the fine?

emodendroket 8y ago
I mean with scrap metal or whatever it's one thing, but your weekly trash? Unless the cost is exorbitant people are probably just going to pay to have the bags for their trash. Like I think in Japan they were about $5; I'm not going to start trucking my fish bones to the local stream to save five bucks.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  It all really depends on how much painpoint there is regarding refuse/recycling. The more rules, fines, restrictions the state implements, the less people will comply. And lack of compliance means stuff is thrown away in others' yards, dumped on the commons, or otherwise hidden to the nature of the trash. Because of onerousness with local ordnances with regarding paint, many people just end up hiding the containers in dog food bags. I've seen quite a few of those already in the local dumpster.
mike_ivanov 8y ago
I see this a lot across British Columbia Lower Mainland, but rather with old mattresses and soft furniture. It's relatively expensive to recycle those, so people just dump them in bushes and even on random people's front yards.