Trash Talk in Houston

Mayor Bill White is asking for input on his proposed garbage fee, but first I’d have a word with some of the other 2 million citizens of Houston.

Bubba, it’s not my business if you want to drive your SUV to WalMart every week, filling the coffers of Petro-Despots who want to destroy us, and exacerbating our trade imbalance with China so they’re better able to pull the rug out from under our economy whenever they like; just so you can buy a bunch of over-packaged crap to take home and then put all your old crap out on the curb twice a week to go to the giant landfill that you don’t have to look at, smell, or even think about.

I just want you to be paying a gas tax, carbon tax, garbage fee, and whatever other costs you run up. Many are already paying for this in blood.

Now, for the Mayor; I suggest a system that I observed in that bastion of plutocracy,
Farmers Branch, Texas, where the G-men only pick up trash that is bagged in the official trash pick-up bags sold by the city. The bags could be priced to cover the price of picking up and disposing of your household trash, plus any costs of operating and maintaining the neighborhood recycling center, which, unlike curbside collection, has the possibility of paying for itself.

This would equitably distribute the costs of trash disposal between those who put out hundreds of bagsful every year and those who put out tens.