We have a lot of trouble with garbage, both toxic and nontoxic. In spite of this, we continue to increase production of both ! That may seem stupid and it is, but no single individual or company or state is stupid. In fact, many individuals, companies and even a few states are making an organized effort to curtail their garbage. The problem is, that takes money, time, and trouble, leaving those who don't do it with an advantage over those who do do it in this free enterprise system of ours, so the good guys lose. The solution is simple. We need federal laws to guide us into a reduction of garbage. These laws will cause everybody a little trouble, but nobody a lot of trouble, and leave no one with an advantage over anyone else.

I read somewhere the other day that lawn clippings and leaves constitute 75% of the garbage in land fills during the month of November, and over 25% during each of the other eleven months. Well, although I personally believe that hauling off your lawn clippings and leaves instead of mulching them up and returning them to the earth is like taking the interest earned on your savings account out and flushing it down the toilet, (it is actually worse, because adding humus to the soil is a very tangible asset useful at any time, money, after all, is an intangible, useful only as long as there are lots of people in a well ordered society to depend upon), I'll accept some people's need to haul off their compost, but let's at least put it where it can be recoverable someday.

Garbage Law #1. Henceforth, nontoxic garbage shall be segregated into three different kinds, reusable biodegradables, non-reusable biodegradables, and non-reusable non-biodegradables, each of which will be sent to different dumps sites.

Here's a law designed to get rid of tin cans, plastic spoons, straws, 6-pack tops, Styrofoam containers of all kinds, and such unnecessary niceties as that.

Garbage Law #2. There shall be a one time use tax on all non-biodegradable, nonrenewable, and nonrecyclable items designed to be used once and then thrown away. This tax shall be $5.00 plus the retail price of the item, if there is one, but this tax shall also be levied upon items given away free with the purchase of accompanying goods and services, (such as Styrofoam cups and plates, plastic spoons and straws, etc.). Certain necessary medical supplies shall be exempt from this tax. (An itemized list of exempt items will be included in this bill, but at the moment, I'm too ignorant to supply it in detail). (Exactly what constitutes recyclable needs to be considered very carefully too.)

Some people need a little encouragement to recycle those things that can be recycled, here's encouragement. There are some logistics to be worked out in this law. Ideally, one should be able to obtain a full refund at the store from whence the purchase was made, but for convenience, one might return it to a recycling business, which would return a bit less than the full refund, in order to sustain a profit. That means each business would have to have some cheap, easy way to apply its own unique mark to each container it sold, of which I'm unaware at the moment. (Oregon does something like this now.)

Garbage Law #3. There shall be a return deposit of $0.25 charged on all recyclable containers, refundable when the item is returned to the place purchased or a recycling center.  (2011 update:  These garbage laws may seem extreme, but have you heard about the guy who has spent the last 10 years studying the pile of plastic in the pacific ocean the size of Texas (or bigger)?  No one knows what that is doing to the ecosystem, but it can't be good.)