Funny this comes up now. Today is my garbage day (and I do mean garbage day as this is my once every two weeks bacchanalia) and I dumped my cat litter in the trash last night. I've often wondered if they'd actually resort to giving me a ticket for that. Now I know.

If they start handing out tickets for this sort of thing, I sure hope whatever elected officials are in office at the time are ready to have cat litter and other illegal trash dumped in their front yards. Nick Fish doesn't live too far away from me...

"How long before this sort of "behavior change" approach is adopted in Portlandia?"

Two years. I'm sure the CoP is looking hungrily at the potential revenue stream from imposing lots of fines on Portland homeowners.

D.C. Council Member Jack Evans says DPW is going too far with its recycling enforcement....

Would we be so fortunate to have such a council member?

Most likely, our city would like the idea of another avenue to pickpocket the citizens with more inspections and fines.

I'd say inspectors going through residential garbage is going too far. Would there be privacy / unreasonable search issues there? Sure you're putting your garbage out on the street where anybody can look at it but you have to put your garbage out there so it can be picked up. Sounds to me like this could get interesting.

"I'd say inspectors going through residential garbage is going too far. Would there be privacy / unreasonable search issues there? Sure you're putting your garbage out on the street where anybody can look at it but you have to put your garbage out there so it can be picked up. Sounds to me like this could get interesting."

From the ever-accurate Internet:

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided that cops can search and seize abandoned property. In essence, once papers or contraband have been thrown into a trash receptacle, it is considered "abandoned" and anyone, including the police, can look through it and claim ownership. A trash search will not constitute an illegal search and seizure in the eyes of the law.

The real question is whether the citizens of Portland are such sheep that they will put up with this. (I'd know which way I'd bet.)

And I'd like to thank Sam Adams from the bottom of my heart. I'm making the mistake of leaving for a few days over Christmas, missing my biweekly trash pickup day, so I get to go a month without trash collection. Jerk.

In the name of "saving the planet", all sorts of things could get "interesting". Climate change doesn't scare me half as much as the thought of what people in power could say they need to do to the rest of us.

I considered mentioning this when I spotted the article yesterday, but I really didn't want to give our benevolent overlords any ideas.

There are, however, a couple of factors which come into play, here: (1) - while herbivore waste is perfectly compostable, waste from predators and primates is strictly verboten (including bedding), due to potential health risks. This is why waste from ORPRC, predators and primates at the zoo, Guide Dogs for the Blind, and other and other such facilities must be bagged and disposed of as trash, or incinerated, or directed into an approved sewage disposal system. Indeed, it's my understanding that the Guide Dogs facility in Boring sports a larger and more advanced sewage disposal facility than the the town itself.

(2) - the material in question isn't actually cat-litter; it's shredded newspaper. Leaving aside the question of whether or not this is, in fact, a higher use of the materials when compared with the manure that many publishers routinely print on the stuff, the cat owner in this case is adhering to standards promulgated by USDA, which the D.C. officials are attempting to violate.

WELCOME to Clark County!

Jack Bog: How long before this sort of "behavior change" approach is adopted in Portlandia?

TOJ: I'd say about 15 minutes.

Salem Village, 1692.

Climate change doesn't scare me half as much as the thought of what people in power could say they need to do to the rest of us.

What they have already done is plenty scary!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus_in_the_United_States

Following the 1 December 2011 vote by the United States Senate to reject an NDAA amendment proscribing the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens, the ACLU has argued that the legitimacy of Habeas Corpus is threatened: "The Senate voted 38-60 to reject an important amendment [that] would have removed harmful provisions authorizing the U.S. military to pick up and imprison without charge or trial civilians, including American citizens, anywhere in the world... We’re disappointed that, despite robust opposition to the harmful detention legislation from virtually the entire national security leadership of the government, the Senate said ‘no’ to the Udall amendment and ‘yes’ to indefinite detention without charge or trial."[46] The New York Times has stated that the vote leaves the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens "ambiguous," with some senators including Carl Levin and Lindsey Graham arguing that the Supreme Court had already approved holding Americans as enemy combatants, and other senators, including Dianne Feinstein and Richard Durbin, asserting the opposite.[47]

How long before this sort of "behavior change" approach is adopted in Portlandia?

It's in our near future, no doubt. I've been assuming all along that one reason they went to the every other week garbage collection is because they believe a lot of us out here are putting things in the garbage that is recyclable, and this is their way of forcing people to recycle more.

I dumped my cat litter in the trash last night.

Couldn't that go in the green yard debris/food container?

Personally, were I this person, I would put the contaminated shredded 'kitty litter paper' in the recycle bin and be done with it. Let the "inspectors" deal with the kitty poop!
I might even be tempted to add some additional items in there as well!
But then I am not a very nice person, sometimes.
I am glad that I do not live within the city limits of Portlandia, and that the craziness has not spread this far as yet.

Me-ow! Why is everybody havin' a bird here? DC's recycling/garbage cops are getting their pants pulled down and a nationwide public spanking for such a stoopid citation. That kind of twisted punitive garbage cop behavior is not going to be replicated anywhere, especially after that.

The gal that's making her own kitty litter should get an award -- and Pyewacket, too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ0Jr0PCc6w

I've heard, antedoctally, of Portland residents receiving notices when they put recyclables in the garbage...but no fines.

Wouldn't surprise me...what's actually surprising is that it hasn't happened yet. Gotta pay for that fancy new streetcar, why not tax St. Johns and Lents and Far Southwest residents for it.

I'd sure like to know if this is a generational thing or strictly based on personality. Do older folks who grew up in an era or more personal freedoms and property rights recognize the suffocating, freedom-robbing effects of increasing laws and regulations over individuals' lives..... Or are there just a lot of busy-bodies who really don't have a meaningful purpose in life that like to think of ways they can regulate others and then spy on their neighbors and turn them in. You just have to know who to trust these days.

Remember this Superbowl Ad?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxTNZUhesZk

Lexuslib, the police will just get overtime pay to guard the city officials' garbage cans.

Every fortnight you'll have the green police out with "Recycle" check points. Keepin mother gaia safe from harm.

Seattle has had an ordinance since 2005 against significant recyclables in the trash can:

http://www.seattle.gov/util/About_SPU/Recycling_System/History_&_Overview/Ban_on_Recyclables_in_Garbage/index.asp

So is everyone here really harkening back to the days of no recycling, at all,and tossing EVERYTHING in a landfill on 82nd Ave, or in Oregon City, or St. Johns? Not taking ANY responsibility for the waste one generates at home? Ignoring the effects of one household times 500,000, or so? I suppose smoking in all public spaces is another awful loss of rights too. Rose colored glasses make people see funny things...

So do overtight bike pants.

I maintain I have not abandoned trash and recycles when I place it in the bin. I am transferring it to another party and it belongs to them.

So is everyone here really harkening back to the days of no recycling, at all,and tossing EVERYTHING in a landfill on 82nd Ave, or in Oregon City, or St. Johns? Not taking ANY responsibility for the waste one generates at home?...

I don’t think everyone here is harkening to go back that far, how about just back to a few weeks ago when most of us were already recycling and getting a weekly garbage pickup?
Now we have to deal with the "added behavioral" changes. We'll see how it all turns out during the holidays; I can envision that after a dinner with family and friends, along with sending home some good leftovers, we may now have to ask if they could also take a “garbage care package” in order to distribute the load more evenly.

PdxMark = Stockholm Syndrome

PdxMark:

"But it was all right, everything was all right, the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother."

Nolo:I'd sure like to know if this is a generational thing or strictly based on personality...

May be a bit of both.

Do older folks who grew up in an era or more personal freedoms and property rights recognize the suffocating, freedom-robbing effects of increasing laws and regulations over individuals' lives.....

Don’t know when one considers oneself older, but if one knows days of more personal freedoms, yes.

I find that I often think of my grandparents, and others of their generation and wonder what they would think if I related to them what has happened to our country and the ways our rights have been reduced. I picture my grandparents would sit in disbelief...and most of all disbelief that people are not more engaged or outraged.