Garbage

[darthzew]

I live in Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's the second-largest city in the world. It's really, really awesome. I love it here. But there's one big, gaping problem: garbage. It's everywhere. On the street, blubbering out of landfills... everywhere you can imagine. The pollution is terrible.

I was just thinking about how this problem needs to be fixed... but how? With over 23 million people here, you'd think we'd have a solution by now, but it's not getting any better.

My question: if you were mayor of Sao Paulo, what sorts of resolutions would you enact to clean up the city?

 

[PrISM]

Aww I thought this was going to be a Shirley Manson fapping thread.

 

[implodingMan]

Kill everyone that litters with hidden snipers and artillery barrages.

Seriously though put out trash cans or something.

 

[Hey Joe]

I would offer a reward to schoolkids for each bag of garbage they bring to the dump. Kids are always looking for a few pesos.

OT: Do they have Favelas in Sao Paulo, or is that just confined to Rio?

 

[vxicepickxv]

Fines for littering, more strategically positioned public garbages and recycle bins.
I would also finance a company that buys trash for X Real per trash bag and turns it into renewable energy. Compost, methane, or whatever.
This would get all the homeless and the poor an incentive to work at cleaning the city for cash.
There is I admit a slight ethical issue in proceeding this way, but no scandal.

Wait, paying someone to do a job is unethical? I suppose if you pay them less than a survivable wage that could be considered unethical, maybe.

 

[searanox]

I just don't understand littering. I never do it, and it's a horrible, lazy, destructive habit. What possible benefit is there to it? Just carry your damn garbage a little longer until you find a recycling bin or something and drop it in there. They're usually not at all hard to find, and big deal even if you can't find one - just stick it in your pocket and take it home, then toss it out.

As for what to do with garbage, in general... well, burning it is not really feasible because of the emissions, recycling can be expensive and only works for some things, so... I suppose we can always shoot it into space!

 

[HSIAMetalKing]

Fines, fines, fines! Fine everyone who so much as spits out their gum on the sidewalk. I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of $5,000 or two years in jail.

Throw a few fuckers in some cells and I'll bet your streets will get clean pretty damn fast.

 

[vxicepickxv]

Fines, fines, fines! Fine everyone who so much as spits out their gum on the sidewalk. I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of $5,000 or two years in jail.

Throw a few fuckers in some cells and I'll bet your streets will get clean pretty damn fast.

Are you from Singapore by any chance?

 

[Susan Arendt]

Aww I thought this was going to be a Shirley Manson fapping thread.

You clearly haven't seen her lately. Yeeesh...gal ain't aging well. She's on the Sarah Connor Chronicles, if you'd like to check it out.

As to the problem...encourage recycling (the easier you make it, the more likely folks are to actually do it), tax incentives for companies that take steps to either reduce their trash output or help clean it up. Start programs in early schools -- preschool age -- that teach the importance of recycling and garbage clean up. If you make things a habit at an early age, it solves problems later on. (Granted, I know that doesn't help right now, but one must look at problems as long-term.)

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Aww I thought this was going to be a Shirley Manson fapping thread.

You clearly haven't seen her lately. Yeeesh...gal ain't aging well. She's on the Sarah Connor Chronicles, if you'd like to check it out.

But she looked Soooo good.

As to the problem...encourage recycling (the easier you make it, the more likely folks are to actually do it), tax incentives for companies that take steps to either reduce their trash output or help clean it up. Start programs in early schools -- preschool age -- that teach the importance of recycling and garbage clean up. If you make things a habit at an early age, it solves problems later on. (Granted, I know that doesn't help right now, but one must look at problems as long-term.)

Personally I think that the root of the problem is with the corporations rather than us plebs. Check out Penn and Teller's Bullshit for a differing side to the story.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=2028375596
They also do a good one on recycling.

 

[Captain Wes]

make a giant garbage ball and send it into space.

c'mon, you know what it's from

 

[PrISM]

Aww I thought this was going to be a Shirley Manson fapping thread.

You clearly haven't seen her lately. Yeeesh...gal ain't aging well. She's on the Sarah Connor Chronicles, if you'd like to check it out.

She needs to drop the PETA nonsense first.

 

[Droshi]

make a giant garbage ball and send it into space.

c'mon, you know what it's from

Damn, you beat me to the punch. Luckily, we know what happens in the end with this plan, so we would have ample time to form an anti-trash-ball-meteor defense system before disaster strikes. It's fool-proof!

 

[JMeganSnow]

As the mayor, I wouldn't do anything. Why not start a company to clean the place up? If enough people aren't willing to pay for it, why should they be involuntarily *taxed* for it?

 

[partyguy]

Fines for littering, more strategically positioned public garbages and recycle bins.
I would also finance a company that buys trash for X Real per trash bag and turns it into renewable energy. Compost, methane, or whatever.
This would get all the homeless and the poor an incentive to work at cleaning the city for cash.
There is I admit a slight ethical issue in proceeding this way, but no scandal.

Wait, paying someone to do a job is unethical? I suppose if you pay them less than a survivable wage that could be considered unethical, maybe.

It`s no a job you offer them. You make trash worth something and expect them to pick it up to get whatever money it becomes worth of.
Basically, you don't offer job, you kind of create it indirectly and in a semi-twisted way knowing all too well that you are using homeless and poor as well-under paid workers.

I would intentionally make garbage if it was worth something. Besides, who cares how much they are paid; they get first dibs on the trash! After all, one man's garbage is another man's sofa.

 

[JMeganSnow]

Of course, if already you decrease the cost to bringing garbage to the factory by having poor people do it for small wage instead of the middlemen enterprise doing it with trucks it`s already a gain.

Good lord, it's Capitalism! How novel. Personally, I like Terry Pratchett's description of Piss Harry in The Truth. I mean, people *pay* to have garbage taken away. How much better off are you as an entrepreneuer if you can find someone who will pay for said garbage?

An online friend of mine describes landfills as temporary resource storage. Currently it's cheaper and more efficient to make new things than to reuse old ones. If and when the situation changes, landfills will be the new gold mines. It's not like that stuff is *going* anywhere.