A local, county-sized bureaucracy places specially marked dumpsters at convenient locations all over the county. Those sad souls interested in “recycling” can drive to these “recycling centers” and drop off things to be “recycled”.
Several kinds of paper, metals, and plastics are periodically picked up at the “Recycling Centers” and taken to be separated. Then, the material is sold. There is no way that the value of what’s been collected, trucked dozens of miles, unloaded, and separated is worth all the money involved.
Recently, some “bad people” began to drop off bags of unsorted garbage at the Recycling Center’s dumpsters near a place I visit frequently. Almost as criminal in nature, some people were not lifting their bags of “recyclables” up into the dumpsters. They were just setting them on the ground. This problem was magnified when others saw that people were using the “Recycling Center” to drop off their garbage, so they began dropping off more bags of garbage. What began as an attempt to “protect the planet” became small pyramids of plastic bags full of garbage.
To stop this crime wave, expensive cameras were mounted on poles that cost
several thousand dollars to install. A “Recycling Center” employee views the tapes that record activity around the dumpster 24/7. They are of a near-video quality so that malefactors can be properly identified. No expense must be spared in “protecting the planet”.
The videos let the “Recycling Center” identify all the license plate numbers of those who drop off their garbage. The police are then called, and the insufficiently obedient “recyclers” are charged with the appropriate “crime”.
In the year that the dumpsters have been in place in their new location, a local environmental movement has morphed into a police state.
