Yes a lot of places (particularly in Europe) do this as well. What you do is have outrageous fines for dumping and actually enforce it and voila - no garbage.
I suspect it has more to do with a sense of ownership and community than any fines. US Americans tend to live in their homes, while in many other places people live in their city.
It's a natural consequence of American individualism.
Rotterdam, the Netherlands: if you leave a trash bag on the street, inspectors will go through the trash to find identifiable information. The fine is 300+ EUR.
The system pays for itself.
Edit: I looked it up, they've changed it to a three-strike system. 125/250 for the first two; your choice of 500 or 3 days community service (cleaning up litter) on the third strike.
Where do people keep getting these absurd ideas about "american Individualism" being the root fault of so many problems? No, dirty cities are not caused by American individualism. They're caused by a mix of factors that can vary enormously from one place to another and are present all over the world, not just in the U.S.
Have you even traveled much across this huge and deeply diverse country? Or do you just stereotype and generalize by pulling assumptions out of thin air?
There are also many, many very clean communities in the United States, and many people or groups of people who despite loving their personal freedoms and individualism, also take community spirit very seriously in many ways. The country has been famous for this for centuries.
Goddam how simplistic some of the U.S bashing on this site can be, much of it based on incredible levels of ignorance and caricaturesque notions from people who don't even live in the country. Many of them Europeans too, who should know a bit better about avoiding stupid stereotypes and simplistic depictions of complex cultures.
The U.S also consistently happens to rank as one of the world's most charitable countries on a per capita basis (not just in total dollar value donated, though in this too it ranks in the top spot). This ranking has been noted by many sources across many years. American individualism being a terrible thing again... (Yes, sarcasm)
This statistic is highly influenced by income tier, donations to religious organisations like churches, the tax code and as a form of a social safety net that might otherwise be missing.
And none of that changes the basic fact that they tend to donate a lot of money, goods and time to charity-related projects. It's almost like saying "yes sure they donate, but it doesn't count because of this random list of reasons that I don't like".
Also, another major myth of the U.S is that social safety nets don't exist. They're not as well woven as they are in many developed countries, but they're very present and heavily funded. In fact, the single largest annual U.S federal budgetary outlay, costing trillions per year is the whole range of social support programs managed by its government (see link below).
What's more, keep in mind that managing such a thing is much harder in a country of 320 million people than it is in your average European state, of which none have a population of over 90 million (Russia excluded). The U.S social safety net could be much better, especially if spending on other things were discounted, but it's not absent or even close to it.
Also, I partly exclude military spending, because though this viewpoint won't be popular at all here, the colossal U.S defense budget works as a sort of (very flawed) global safety net for many other countries in their relations with certain neighbors.
> Have you even traveled much across this huge and deeply diverse country?
Is this post a travel ad?
Do we pretend cities are overwhelmingly clean just because places like Dallas also exist? Are people supposed to first take selfies in NY and Philly, in Chicago, SF, LA, and Phoenix, to be permitted to say they're dirty?
Maybe on average it's not so bad, but "this place is diverse therefore the opposite is true" is worse than anecdata.
> Goddam how simplistic some of the U.S bashing on this site can be,
Nobody is bashing the states. And nobody said American individualism is all bad.
> Or do you just stereotype and generalize by pulling assumptions out of thin air?
Is individualism -> not my problem really a bad explanation? Even when people to try to explain why their hometown in the US is clean it usually starts with "no walled enclaves here/people don't live in little castles".
I think you might taking issue with the assumption that American cities are dirty in the first place, not my attempt at explaining it? It's hard to tell since most of your post is you being upset with me, making accusations, very little substance.
For European city dwellers, "where you live" and a sense of "ownership" extends far beyond the walls of your apartment/home - to incorporate your neighborhood to some extent.
For a lot of US folks in cities, this doesn't seem to be the case.
The post is wrong though. Tokyo isn't a nice city because Japanese people are mystically polite to each other, it's nice because it has good policies which you can copy yourself.
It is because of the culture of the Japanese people. In the World Cup and other stadiums they pick up all their trash when they leave and leave it pristine. They don’t have to worry about fines in the stadium.
They are rather polite, but they also have good residential trash pickup.
In this case, anyway. It's actually pretty difficult to get rid of some things, so people can build up a lot of junk at home - Marie Kondo's books in Japan actually have extra sections on how to get rid of it.
Maybe. It's equally possible that any particular policy won't stand by itself. That for the garbage policy to work you also need some large number of other policies that are endogenous to Japan.
I suspect it also has to do with the possibility that someone in the US who is antisocial enough to dump their trash in the street might also be armed and not afraid to chase you at gunpoint if you try to toss their trash back on their front porch... if you're lucky, that is; decent chance they'll just shoot you.
Made me think of this, a story about neighbors killing each other over perceived trash dumping offenses. America is big enough you can't say it won't happen
> Again, this is just another excuse, and part of the problem. The more Americans view interaction through this lens, the worse they are for it.
Literally people have died thanks to these laws because of trigger-happy arseholes thinking they're backed by these laws, even if there have been verdicts to the contrary like [1].
The problem is: there are way too many guns in circulation in the US, there are way too many vaguely written (or titled) laws that seem to allow this kind of use, and it sends shockwaves through the country regularly. Hell, it even has an impact on policing because police legitimately have to fear getting shot over as benign interactions as traffic stops [2][3], with the result of outright homicides by cops in return [4].
I'm European and hell no I won't ever visit the US until y'all have your gun problems resolved (and your border control under control instead of employing rapists and other goons with a license to search your electronic devices, but that's another topic).
My former roomie had this lovely letter pinned on his wall, from the DA, or "Staatsanwaltschaft" as the locals say.
It states that witnesses reported him putting the box of his new LG tv, in with the paper rubbish.
It then states that a subsequent investigation proved, that it was indeed his LG cardboard box, with, o horror, the styrofoam packaging still inside! Don't laugh, it's a crime.
It concludes by politely offering a close to a 1000 CHF fine, lest he'd like to discuss the matter in front of a judge.
Total aside, just FYI it's 'on par with'; in this usage 'par' comes directly from Latin without passing French, where 'par' is not about equality. I think the French equivalent would be 'égal à'.
Interesting! I believe my English teacher in middle school always wrote it like this - but it's equally possible that I just memorized it wrong. I'll make sure to use it correctly from now on.
They learn to recycle in the proper places. Styrofoam, cooking oils, metals, glass by color (although all in the same recycling place), paper and carton gets picked from the curb in certain (different) days... they receive the yearly schedule and all necessary addresses in the post and follow it.
My point is that everyone makes mistakes at some point, no matter the "learning". Everyone. Punishing someone poor so disproportionately seems really harsh and unfair.
But, as someone else pointed out bellow, supposedly the judge also looks at the person's income, and, hopefully, the fine is commensurate with said person's income (i.e. not really reaching 1000 CHF).
So you wanted to move to switzerland, but not anymore because you refuse to learn recycling?
It is really not that hard.
And the fine is high, but if you don't enforce rules, the rules become meaningless and then for example the recycled paper worthless, because there is too much plastic in them.
Edit: but to be clear, I would not call the police on someone who did not do proper recycling. I would simply tell them directly.
> What happens to the people who barely scrap by but who receive this type of fines?
You never do it again, that's for sure. Switzerland is a very fine-heavy society. Sounds like a bit more research before developing that wish would have been beneficial for you... good for you that you didn't follow that wish.
> Sounds like a bit more research before developing that wish would have been beneficial for you
Yeah, I realise I dodged a bullet.
We did visit Switzerland and one of the main no-no-s for me was when I saw that the authorities can enter your house to check on you almost at will, if you live in Government-subsidised housing, that is. I did grow up in a Communist dictatorship, where all the housing was basically subsidised, and we didn't have to put up with crazy intruding stuff like that. But it is a very clean country, I'll give the Swiss that.
>What happens to the people who barely scrap by but who receive this type of fines?
Really it isn't that big of a problem. A judge would likely look at your income but if you want to compare there are better/worse things to look at, like healthcare might be one. It is after all avoidable by just recycling unlike needing healthcare.
I don’t know about other places but from what I observed and experienced in Worcester there were several problems that made it not work:
1. The cost of the trash bags relative to median income in some neighborhoods was too high. When a 5 pack of bags is $9 and you earn $7.25/hour before taxes, it is suddenly not that easy to justify doing the right thing when the free thing is possible.
2. People lived in apartment buildings and multi family homes so there is no easy identification of who exactly leaves a car battery or a mattress on the sidewalk at 3am. Having cops watch all the streets all the time for this wouldn’t work and neighbors don’t want to bother watching each other.
3. Because people didn’t earn that much relative to cost of living, high fines would just throw poor people in jail while those who can afford the bags can just buy the bags. So you’d still have trash on the streets but also cause people who can least afford it to lose their jobs by making them miss work.
4. Minor point but where you buy the bags matters. It was highly inconvenient that you couldn’t buy them at grocery stores. Instead you had to literally go out of your way to go to sketchy convenience stores and liquor stores instead.
Plenty of people used the bags but there were enough who didn’t that it made the city dirty. And once you get used to seeing trash on the street you are a lot less likely to think twice about contributing to it yourself.
i dont live in the US, but a small city in north india. so, we had this garbage problem (like you could see in new delhi today or a few years ago) on the streets with lots and lots of street garbage just everywhere.
over the past few years some changes were made.
1. a garbage truck ACTAULLY knocks on your door every morning, rain or snow and collects your home garbage. what used to happen was people earlier would fill their dustbins and once they were full, would take it outside to the nearest electric pole and just dump it there. stray dogs, straw cows would have a feast....
Now, the municipality took measures by giving garbage bins to everyone (for some tiny amount) and the garbage truck would take the days worth. that and the garbage collectors would double as street stray pickers so during their rounds if they found any random garbage, they would collect as they went. then they would manually sweep the streets every other day.
markets and other stuff, there is an informal "rag pickers" who take away business packing and other stuff because it is consistent and they get some income so that doesn't go to the streets. the municipality then goes around at night and does a manual sweep, every single day.
NO-ONE buys trash bags here. It is JUST TOO expensive like you said.
there is one part of the problem that still remains. Our city/region is still developing so there is constant constructions going on EVERYWHERE. the construction related wastage is neglected somewhat and people go at night and dump it here and there but otherwise i can safely say our city is MUCH MUCH cleaner than it was 5 years ago.
one of the good steps was the mandatory municipality fees which is only a few hundred bucks in local currency and that has helped a lot (plus the employees of the municipality nag people about leaving trash which helped in its own way)
We have this in the UK except for the enforcement bit which is only vary rare headline seeking click-bait and the consequences are obvious. Some remote spots have large amounts of industrial-scale waste dumped on regular basis, I walk past 3 of them every week yet the local council always feigns surprise when it happens.
The answer is, as you have, severe enforcement or provision of an affordable alternative.
I would argue the answer is twofold. Make it easy to do the right thing and make it very expensive to not do the right thing. Just making it very expensive doesn't work and will feel unjust when you get fined.
Yeah, some genius thought, "lets charge money to drop things at the dump to encourage people not to buy crap that ends up in the dump, it will save the planet!"
But the reality is, the dump which has disposal standards costs money, so let's drop trash in pristine wilderness because we won't get caught.
The other problem is a landfill or dump is miles and miles away. As you said, they charge money, and they also have rules.
You might not be able to throw out bags of household trash, for example. They also usually don't take certain kinds of waste like old tires, construction debris, appliances, paint, batteries, etc.
So people just dump it wherever they find empty lots.
Or they don't have a car and the city bus isn't going to allow you to bring a mattress on it! Your options then are pay someone $100 to get rid of it (which you likely don't have if you don't have a car) or dump it somewhere and hope for the best.
It took me a decade in Ireland to realize that crime is allowed. Literally. At all tiers of society. You can stomp on your girlfriend's neck and get a suspended sentence. You can blatantly violate GDPR and the Irish DPC will look the other way. You can plop a couple mobile homes on to your land and nobody will do anything. You can break any and all environmental laws (ripping out hedgerows in nesting season? Dumping massive amounts of waste? Cutting turf from protected bogs?) and people get nechaches they can't even nod and say "sure it's grand" fast enough. Never mind car crime - there isn't a footpath or bike lane in the country that isn't littered with vehicles. When I was in Dublin 2 we'd see people clamped for running out of time on the meter when they parked legally but other, more in-the-know people, would park on the footpath THE WHOLE WEEKEND with zero consequence.
I don't know what it is. Absolute, profound, laziness? The gardai are useless. Though I remember when I registered to vote at the Garda station (I had just been naturalised) the officer told me "whatever you do don't vote for the Green Party" (explains some of the above I suppose)
I think of myself as left but I must admit I'd be really interested in a politician who wanted to actually enforce the law.
> You can stomp on your girlfriend's neck and get a suspended sentence.
Physical assaults are really poorly handled by the courts.
For violent crimes, they even allow alcohol or drugs as a mitigating factor, and rarely follow up on the character references. Amusingly, for nonviolent crimes they are much stricter.
Worse - self defense is next to impossible. You can't own pepper spray or anything like that, and if you fight back you can also end up in the dock for assault.
> You can blatantly violate GDPR and the Irish DPC will look the other way.
The DPC is (deliberately) chronically underfunded. Some suspect this is to keep the country a friendly location for certain multinational companies.
> You can plop a couple mobile homes on to your land and nobody will do anything.
That doesn't violate the letter of the (backwards) planning laws.
> You can break any and all environmental laws
Enforcement of those is left to councils, who often are the ones breaking said laws (specifically, destroying habitats).
As for turf cutting, those laws were poorly thought out and likely will play a big part in the next election in rural areas.
Banning commercial harvesting is undeniably a good thing, but the hard and fast attempt to ban cutting for personal use has not been well received, especially in the current climate with regards energy.
> The gardai are useless.
Yes, they seem to have their priorities backwards a lot of the time. They are excellent at pursuing cannabis users and road traffic offenses, but pretty rubbish at everything else.
The easy out politically is to call for more Gardai to be recruited, but numbers aren't the real problem - quality and distribution are.
> the officer told me "whatever you do don't vote for the Green Party"
The Greens here aren't well liked for many reasons around the country - largely when they come up with policies, they ignore the objective reality of life outside Dublin, and tend to go right towards taxing the bollix out of you or banning things without providing an alternative. See also: turf.
Take for example, public transport. Outside urban areas, it may as well not exist. However the Greens won't advocate for expanded public transit in rural (or even commuter areas outside Dublin) because there is "no demand" and "everyone there will just drive anyway".
They are also entirely opposed to nuclear power, which is unfortunate.
They are often referred to as "Fine Gael on bikes" for a reason.
> I'd be really interested in a politician who wanted to actually enforce the law.
This would require systemic change of the Gardai. FF, FG, and the Greens have no interest in this.
It would also require probably some changes to the courts...
I'm a green voter in Offaly, incidentally, and I ride my bike to the train (_some_ public transport exists out here!) and find a lot of people expect the greens to just give them free Teslas or something.
The officer not liking the greens on a personal level is fine. Telling someone not to vote for them, though, is appallingly unprofessional.
We chatted with the gardai because the neighbours (the ones with the multiple mobile homes who, for that matter, built their whole house without planning, but it's OK because all 17 of them will come and scream at any council worker who talks to them) left a dead crow in a bag by our house and one of them couldn't get why we might be freaked out by this.
In my city I have two 110 gallon trash bins that are picked up twice a week. Have more or something bulky? Put it next to the bin and it will get thrown in the truck.
I have the most amazing garbage collection. No litter, no dumping, the trash is picked up and taken care of.
