by Zoë Pollock
A reader draws an international comparison:
My brother in the Netherlands pays per bag, and dumps his bags in an underground container. Advantage: you can take out the trash every day, and the container only needs to be picked up when full, which can be easily monitored by counting bags. The Dutch government also pressured manufacturers to reduce double packaging, to help citizens create less tax. You know, that toothpaste tube that comes in a box that you throw away immediately. In Switzerland, stores have to provide for trash cans so that customers can leave unnecessary packaging with the store, so they don't have to pay for the trash collection themselves. In the Netherlands, you can stick a sticker on your door, refusing advertisement folders, and hence trash. Obviously, doing that in the US would immediately bankrupt USPS. In short, it is a lot easier for local government not to do anything. It's a governance issue.
Another writes from Ontario:
In short, you get one free bag of garbage removed per week. You also get free recycling and composting. Each household has a blue box (for recycling), a large green container (for compost material) and a small green container (for use in the kitchen). The city either sells or gives away the fertilizer/soil that comes from the compost material. A small family can often go for a two weeks without having to put out a garbage bag.
And another reader offers a country perspective:
Out here in rural Ithaca, i.e. Tompkins County, it's a yearly flat fee for them to stop at your house. It's a per-bag or per-can fee after that, collected weekly via a tag you place on your bag or can. As our own driveway is several hundred yards long, we opt for taking our garbage directly to the dump. There we have the option of paying the per-bag fee or a structured by-weight fee for larger (truck) loads. As we'd have to load our garbage into a vehicle to take it to the end of the drive anyway, we save $100 / year by taking it to the dump ourselves. Recycling is free at any time at the dump.
But that doesn't change the overall point of your post. Yes, people around here recycle more and throw out less than we used to due to the pay-per-bag system. Sometimes folks throw bags out of their vehicles, presumably to save money, but in my own experience even illegal dumping is less of a problem than it used to be.
Earlier threads are here and here.
(Photo of recycling pickup in Shanghai by Flickr user ksheehan)
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