The Stupidity of My Local Officials

City of Charleston

NOTICE TO PUBLIC

Termination of Residential Recycling Drop-off Bins

Due to Limited Resources & Availability of Local Recycling Alternatives.

Please contact Local Waste Collectors offering curbside recycling services…

I loaded up my truck with two weeks of recycling the other day and Bear and I headed out to do our civic duty, only to find that the dumpsters were missing. A few years ago the city moved them without much public notice and, with a little digging, I found them again, so I figured it had happened again. This is just part of living in this strangely dysfunctional Midwest town.

When went to my “progressive” city’s website, however, I found that the recycling program had ended. The country goes one way, making at least some small strides towards sanity, and the bozos in my town go in the opposite direction. It makes no sense at all to have these private companies collecting garbage in the first place, and now they’ve cut off public support of recycling.

Here, the market still rules, despite all evidence of its inefficiency and lack of ethics. I’d like to know more about the local businesses who benefit from this change. My guess is that they are either big contributors to our local politicians or closely associated with them in some way or some combination of both. Market ideology always sounds disinterested but is always very much interested.