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By J Selwyn
#125
I have an idea about pollution that may really stop industries and the gov't from dumping trash in our backyards! There are countless examples of companies dumping their trash, usually on the poor side of town.

I think that all companies and individuals should be ranked by how much trash/waste they produce. This could be done by producing trash cans & dumpsters with sensors that count the amount of mass in the container per week. For liquid waste (which many companies dump liberally into streams & oceans), a mandatory tracking device on all pipes shows how much waste is being released, and with what chemical makeup. People and companies have a moderate waste allowance per year, and a tally is kept automatically in a central system monitored by local citizens.

Here's the deal... the more you pollute (as shown by the tracking device), the closer city planners put local dumps to your location. So trash is not kept in one huge location out-of-town, but in small pockets near you. If you produce huge wasteful amounts of waste or small toxic ones, the community is notified and you get a nice plaque with a garbage can, presented by the mayor, at a ceremony before the town. Then you get trash from the community that you polluted. The dump would ideally be located near where the president or board of directors of the pollution company live. Brimming recycling cans or ecologically safe liquid waste would be balanced against your trash and reflected in your total account. To introduce this idea to a largely wasteful public, perhaps less waste could be tied to property tax benefits the first couple years (since it would cut down on city costs). I think that these tracking devices would not be hard to create (I welcome your messages), but real struggle is getting the gov't to agree.

So as a clause to the idea, if a huge polluter doesn't get the point of all this after a year, garbage is sent from the local dump to be buried in a special congressional dump for each representative of your community, who didn't crack down on the polluter in the first place.

Reward: Some credit, and a cleaner stream to swim in...
By TJ
#732
I agree the pollution tracking would be hard to implement since the offenders can be big political supporters. The household trash tracking is a great idea! ;-D I would be more than willing to let someone weigh, even poke through my garbage. :*)
By Guest
#1206
I like it.

Maybe you could get some kind of ticket or fine if you produce to much garbage, then everyone would be coming up with ideas to reduce there waste and there fines. :-b
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By FlatTop808
#2565
A large problem with your idea is that not only are dumps usually located in poor, politically under-represented areas, the polluting industries usually are too.
Another problem is that you would create many small dump sites that would need to be monitored. It is cheaper and more efficient to have a few large sites that are easier to oversee.
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By Michael D. Grissom
#2595
Oh yes,.. I think that would work something like this? ;-)
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By MaddieDT
#4913
I would totally be in favor of monitoring the amount of trash produced. Unfortunately, the part of building landfills closer to the pollutors would be problematic due to the factors taken into consideration. The biggest of these factors being the proper soil type, low population density, and easy access from a major road or highway - not to mention the approval from the county needed to construct the landfills.
But I still think a monitoring program would be great and just impose huge fines for excess dumping. Maybe throw in some community service for the top dogs of the company to keep them on their toes as well.
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By Michael D. Grissom
#4920
I'm thinking that as long as THEY have to pay such a high cost of disposing waste created by the products that WE consume then the problem will never end. However, if WE (our tax dollars) are used to pay THEM to dump in FREE (our tax dollars again) designated locations then THEY could only profit by doing the right thing. This just may take a lot less of our tax dollars than all the federal legislations and law inforcement that's currently NOT doing the job.

Just a thought
By Ellie s
#15307
I think if someone approached this as a business plan and competed with the trash company that is currently in place and included recycling with it this could really create a lot of jobs. You could weigh peoples trash as you pick it up and at the end of period of time you give people cash back on there card for the amount of cans they recycled and a tax cut if they are in the light weight bracket and even annual reports of there own consumption. If we actually recycled plastics in the US instead of china and produced a couple of beneficial products you could earn by recycling with the business, I think you would have incentive for people to sign up.
I think penalizing only creates more problems. People and companies will get more creative on how to avoid getting caught but if you hold a carrot out to get your trash to the right place and bring master card and visa rewards with it you on the right track.
It can cost a lot to dump construction waste and really most of it isn't waste at all. So think about if you knew there a place to get used bricks and if you bought them with you card you earned points and lost weight on your annual report> you might think twice about going to the big home improvement place and buying them new. i don't know
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