Posted on 08/01/2008 7:43:12 AM PDT by SmithL
Garbage collectors would inspect San Francisco residents' trash to make sure pizza crusts aren't mixed in with chip bags or wine bottles under a proposal by Mayor Gavin Newsom.
And if residents or businesses don't separate the coffee grounds from the newspapers, they would face fines of up to $1,000 and eventually could have their garbage service stopped.
The plan to require proper sorting of refuse would be the nation's first mandatory recycling and composting law. It would direct garbage collectors to inspect the trash to make sure it is put into the right blue, black or green bin, according to a draft of the legislation prepared by the city's Department of the Environment.
The program is designed to limit the amount of food and foliage that goes into the city-contracted landfill in Alameda County, where the refuse takes up costly space and decomposes to form methane, one of the most potent of greenhouse gases. It will also help San Francisco, which city officials say currently diverts 70 percent of its waste from landfills, achieve a goal set by the Board of Supervisors to divert 75 percent by 2010 and have zero waste by 2020.
"If we're truly going to be the city we promote ourselves to be, a world-class, 21st century city that advances its values and principles, we're going to have to try new things," Newsom said Thursday. "People are used to doing things a certain way. And when you change that, they say it can't be done. Well, we've proved them wrong."
He pointed to a doubling in the city's recycling rate from 1996 to 2008, but acknowledged "it will take some time" to win over hearts and minds.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
LOL. Thanks for posting. Thanks for adding a laugh to my day. :-)
Food and foliage will produce methane as it decomposes. It does not matter if it is in a landfill a compost heap or the sewer.
...yikes! the garbage police....oh well, it is San Francisco after all.
Comment:
Whats the difference if the trash collectors take on duties of law enforcement.
In Cuba and the old Soviet empire neighbors could report neighbors for the slightest things and those neighbors would just disappear.
In California we have mandated reporters for any person who works around a child.
These people if you piss them off and you have children can call Child Protective Services and it is their word against yours to the tune of thousands of dollars.
We have achieved Communism through the good heartiness of incompetent bleating heart legislators to do their jobs.
Toss the garbage out on the city streets, on your way out of that cesspool.
Sorting trash is just refuge segregation. We all know that segregation is wrong.
In Switzerland, I’m told they have a squad of “Trash Police” who sort through your refuse looking for a fineable offense.
Even SF residents have a limit to liberal nonsense.
this is how it was when we lived in germany.
Now whats it going to cost to find people to go through everyones trash to see if it is sorted?
and who would want the job? I guess they will have to sort out poo diapers, bottles, tampons, God only knows what else.
Fun. Maybe thats why SF Gavin wants illegals.
I take my own logical approach to recycling, which goes like this ....
I bought it with my own, hard worked for cash.
When I am finished with it, and no longer want it, I dispose of it.
You want it, you pay me for it.
It's too bad ignorance isn't painful.
Grandma (in Raleigh) occasionally gets notices telling her they will fine her $50.00 for some violation or the other. She hasn’t actually been fined yet, but worries about it. If she can’t figure out how to dispose of something or she has too much, like cardbopard, we sometimes bring the trash item in question home with us and put it in our trash. Our town doesn’t recycle; the Commissioners say it costs too much. ;)
Good morning to the Princess and the Peapod.
Recycling progression:
Voluntary
Mandatory/Fines
Mandatory/Fee
All my trash goes into the garbage can. That includes bottles, cans, newspapers, light bulbs, telephone books and just about anything else you can imagine. If I can’t sell it, into the trash it goes. And I don’t feel the slightest bit of remorse.
here, they refuse recycling if it isn’t sorted correctly in some of the neighborhoods. the thing is, if you take the stuff to the recycling center in town, they pay you for it...so why would anyone here deal with the trash bullies who you have to pay...who also get paid for your recycling...
And once the citizens submit to this the next mandate will be on thermostats. Then travel as use of autos is restricted. Then energy rationing with certain hours of the day as mandatory off time. Then the curtailment of business hours to reduce travel and energy usage.
I suppose I could go on and on but you get the idea. When those who govern are nuts enough to think that they are saving the planet anything and everything is justified.
:::::::::::
I believe CA building code mandates state-controlled thermostats for new construction already.
For years I've called this crap a Citizen IQ Test. As long as we, the voters, allow our public "servants" to get away with this totalitarian nonsense, we deserve what we get. But the years of brainwashing by government schools and the media seem to have been very effective.
Yup.. another vote for “I dont sort trash and I dont recycle.”
I would sooner dump it in public trash bins before sorting trash.
I have always said that they should hire the homeless to sort the trash.. at least they would be DOING something for the money.
Trash police are not going to fly with me.
My first instinct would be to bag it up and toss it in the first city-owned parking lot I came across. Then they can inspect it without wasting gas to drive to my home.
“The program is designed to limit the amount of food and foliage that goes into the city-contracted landfill in Alameda County, where the refuse takes up costly space and decomposes to form methane, one of the most potent of greenhouse gases.”
That’s stupid. The garbage is going to decompose no matter where it ends up.
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