Socialized Trash

I’ve long said here that we need to go with city-wide trash pickup that is paid for through property taxes. The current system just encourages fly-dumping. This SJ-R story puts a face on the problem.

As prices go up and the economy continues to sour, even more people are going to cut out the now optional expense of trash pick-up. To my mind, trash pickup is a great bargain; you get a lot for not so much money. But for some people, it makes more sense to throw their stuff in someone else’s dumpster rather than pay for it to be hauled away themselves.

Some people are pretty brazen about it. I was working overtime one weekend about a year ago when out the window I noticed a pickup truck pull up to the company’s dumpster across the parking lot. Two men got out, unloaded a couple of mattresses, and then quickly sped off. All in broad daylight.

It’s time that the city take over the trash collection business and put an end to this. I’ve lived in a number of communities right here in Illinois that do and it works great. I’d like to see our pain-in-the-ass satellite communities (yeah, I’m looking at you Jerome, Grandview, et al) join in the effort too but they likely won’t. And that will mean some fly dumping from those areas, but till, it’ll be better than what we have now.