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St. Lawrence County legislator tries to clear up proposed recycling legislation

Posted 5/3/16

To the Editor: Recycling is important, and the St. Lawrence County Legislature is looking at ways to improve our county’s recycling rate. However, we can and should do it in a way that doesn’t …

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St. Lawrence County legislator tries to clear up proposed recycling legislation

Posted

To the Editor:

Recycling is important, and the St. Lawrence County Legislature is looking at ways to improve our county’s recycling rate. However, we can and should do it in a way that doesn’t violate individual rights.

The legislature is discussing a proposal to make it illegal for county residents to use non-clear trash bags. The purpose of the clear bags is to make it easy for trash haulers to inspect each bag of trash, looking for items that should have been recycled. Haulers will refuse to pick up bags that are found to contain recyclables, and repeat offenders will be fined.

Massena does this already. Potsdam does things differently, using economic incentives to get people to recycle. In Potsdam, throwing trash away costs more than recycling, and we also make it very easy to recycle. So the economic incentive gets people thinking about recycling, and once theyfind out how easy it is, it’s easy for them to get into the habit. It’s a win-win.

When the clear bag requirement was proposed to the legislature, I suggested that we could try the economic incentive approach instead. The answer from St. Lawrence County Solid Waste Director Larry R. Legault was that this would be too difficult. There are multiple garbage haulers in the county, he said, and it would be too difficult to force them to follow the system we use in Potsdam.

So let’s be clear about what’s really behind the proposed requirement. It’s easier for county government to require every citizen to submit to having their trash inspected every week than it is for county government to require the hauling companies to offer economic incentives instead.

As a private citizen, I’m personally not okay with having my trash inspected by anyone for any reason. It’s gross, and it feels like an invasion of privacy. A government that decides it has the right to inspect my trash every week feels like Big Brother to me. Yes, it’s legal. I can legally go nosing around in my neighbors’ trash if I want to, and I can justify this creepiness by recovering recyclable items. But that doesn’t mean I should.

A vote against this proposal does not mean a vote against recycling. It is a vote against putting the convenience of trash hauling companies above the individual rights of our citizens.

Joe Timmerman

St. Lawrence County Board of Legislators, District 10