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Mandatory recycling approved, libertarians wince
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'Can I find anything compostable up here?'
San Franciscans, I invite you all to do that self-righteous nod/smile thing, slowly close your eyes, and give yourself a big smug pat on the back. That’s right, the board of supervisors voted on Tuesday to approve the most comprehensive recycling law in the country. I know, I know – I’ve already written about this here and here. However, some horses simply refuse to die, so I view it as my duty to keep beating those horses until we can finally send them off to the glue factory.
To begin with, recycling is a gigantic waste of time, money, and guilt. Don’t believe me? Fine. Here’s an article originally published in the New York Times, which has this to say regarding waste (emphasis mine):
The simplest and cheapest option is usually to bury garbage in an environmentally safe landfill. And since there's no shortage of landfill space (the crisis of 1987 was a false alarm), there's no reason to make recycling a legal or moral imperative. Mandatory recycling programs aren't good for posterity. They offer mainly short-term benefits to a few groups-politicians, public relations consultants, environmental organizations, waste-handling corporations-while diverting money from genuine social and environmental problems. Recycling may be the most wasteful activity in modern America: a waste of time and money, a waste of human and natural resources.
Here’s a video of a more recent interview in Germany, where it is suggested that the most efficient way of dealing with waste is (put on your earmuffs environmentalists) burning it. That is, burning it in a modern high-tech plant with adequate filters in order to generate energy. Go ahead, watch the video; it’s worth it. And no, this isn’t about climate change. The earth has not warmed over the past decade. Seriously. Check here.
Of course, with any ‘mandatory’ program there will always be the issue of compliance enforcement. How will the city make sure that this new diktat is obeyed? We’re putting the onus on the collectors, who’ll ‘tag’ offending bins, and eventually fine the owners.
How dumb is this? Colossally dumb. Here’s why:
1. Many San Franciscans live in apartment buildings which share waste containers. There is no way to determine who is the offender in cases like this, leaving landlords and property managers responsible for something they cannot reasonably be expected to enforce.
2. Anyone who lives on even a semi-busy street knows that as soon as your bins go out, they become de facto public garbage cans for passers-by or the homeless. I’ve been woken up at 4 am by scavengers literally dumping my refuse on the street outside my house – am I required to personally protect my trash? Since San Fran outlaws carrying loaded handguns or knives with blades longer than 3”, the average citizen is left with little to defend those cans with.
3. According to this, “collectors are only going to view what's on top of the container and have no intention of going through them.” This basically means you can fill your blue container with road-kill and used car batteries as long as you sprinkle some beer cans on top. This effectively renders the whole operation pointless.
So what in the hell is the point of this? Why are we wasting our time and money voting on it? The answer, as usual, lies in the hubris of politicians. This is simply a PR move for our Mayor who is gearing up for a run at the governorship, and thinks that a giant pile of organized trash is the perfect boutonniere for a gubernatorial ball. Not to hate on Gavin Newsom; unlike the current Sultan of Sacramento, Newsom at least knows how to balance a budget (which sadly, is no small feat today).
However, the points stand. Recycling is an ineffectual way to deal with most types of waste, and mandatory recycling is unsound in theory and unworkable in practice. Sadly, I don’t hold out much hope for an anti-recycling uprising here in SF. And since I don’t want to pick up a $100 fine, I’ll be the guy out in the street at 4 am in my underwear, wrestling mano-a-mano with transients and crazies to protect the virginity of my garbage.
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