Anarchy Recycling

I hate recycling. I hate it because it doesn’t benefit me, but most of all I hate it because it benefits other people!

Just kidding!

What I find repulsive, is that it’s a tax on my time, with no benefit to me. It’s much faster and easier to just dump everything into the landfill. The incentives are all wrong. The cause of this tragedy is, of course, the government. The problem is that the landfills are owned by the government and it’s free to throw things away.

Here’s a proposal for how it could work in Anarchy-land. Landfills are privately owned. If you want, you can pay per garbage bag. For an additional fee, they will pick-up, but it’s not mandatory. Your neighborhood can have a dumpster (it’s cheaper than paying per bag and only slightly more for pickup). There are rules for what can go into that particular landfill and they have people doing random searches. If they find something that doesn’t belong (batteries, lead paint, motor oil), you get fined $100!

Other facilities can open up their own collection areas for non-recyclable and non-landfill items. It would be much cheaper to throw stuff in these landfills because they are built specifically for this purpose.

Companies that need recyclable resources such as certain plastics and aluminum, can open up their own landfills, and pay you to recycle.

Regular people should have an incentive to recycle and a dis-incentive to throw away harmful materials. Business should have an incentive to collect valuable recyclable materials. If only the government would get out of the way, we could save the earth.