Garbage (and recycling and more!) redux

The trash police: Gavin Newsom is proposing the nation's first-ever mandatory recycling and composting law. Be prepared to pay hefty fines if you toss coffee grounds in with the newspapers.

Read the article.

Read the comments.

People can be such whiners. Gestapo! It's so hard to recycle. &c. and so on.

Yes, proposing outrageous fines if people don't sort their garbage (and maybe cutting off their garbage service ... that'll teach them!) is nonsense, but the City pays a fortune to truck garbage to the dump over by Altamont and with gas prices rising not only is the dump filling (and where will we put trash then?) but costs are rising too.

Our field trip to the dump -- AKA "Norcal Waste System, Inc's Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center" -- last October was enlightening.

Read the trip report with piccies to see why getting people to separate out their recyclable stuff AND ESPECIALLY THEIR GREEN CYCLE is a must if we're going to control the garbage stream (and the fuel costs and the personnel costs and ...)

That said, my comment on the Chron article:

Dear Mayor Newsom.

Come visit. I'll invite some neighbors over. We'll explain how difficult it is to recycle at all when you live off the Filbert Steps.

(1) NorCal won't pick up blue bins here. Paying extra isn't even an option. We FINALLY got a locked bin -- locked so tourists won't throw trash in -- that the immediate neighbors share up at Montgomery and Filbert, but neighbors who live at Filbert and Montgomery bitch and complain about us parking our recycling bin anywhere near their buildings. Add a green bin? As if.

(2) I have a dish on the counter for green-bin scraps. From there, the scraps go to a covered compostable-bag-lined re-purposed menudo pot over by the 'frig. Every 4 days or so -- MAX ... any more than that and the bag will disintegrate and maggots and crud grow -- we tie up the bag, put it in ANOTHER bag, walk it three-plus blocks to our car and DRIVE to drop it off in a large green bin we have access to.

We try, Mr. Mayor. 'tain't easy. Make it easier for us.

His nibs said, why didn't you write about people putting non-greencycle stuff in bins left out for pickup and the greencycle people refusing to pick up the bins? Why didn't you write about neighbors getting upset about people picking through blue bins for cash-refund recyclables and the bratty neighbors kicking the full bin and contents down the stairs, spreading recyclables down the steps to the next landing? Why didn't you write about ...

I told him that the SFChron allows you 1000char for comments and I was down to my last ten or so. ...