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[perkiset]

I read that differently. I think it says that if they find your trash bin has more than 10% recyclable content (ie., you didn't sort out a lot of good stuff) then you will be fined. Or if your recycle bin has not made it to the curb in a few weeks, then you are fined.

My thoughts went from, that's bullshit to wait a minute, trash collection is not a right, it's a service we pay for. It has rules and expectations, not totally wrong.

So let's work through it: by creating trash, people put a burden on the commons. It is unreasonable to expect that someone would be able to completely manage their own trash removal to the dump, especially if the trash needed to stay within their own space until they do so. So the government sets up a service that handles it for us, assisting in maintaining the liberty of space between us. This costs money, so the government either taxes for it or a private service handles it and you get a bill (or it's attatched to your water bill like mine). They make money on recyclables, onstemsibly keeping rates down. So if you're not helping them keep rates down with recycle, then you pay a fee to balance the loss.

Twisted, but it works.
 

[kurdt]

What's wrong with your logic is the penalty. It's been studied and researched a lot that money is a bad motivator. For example when I decide to drive over speed limit, I just weight the amount I would have to pay if I get caught against the gain in time I get from speeding. But there's another way that will be way more effective and that's game mechanics. Increasingly we are moving towards points system in many systems around us. Points can represent status, our level and how "cool" we are. In Xbox Live other people "judge" you by the points. Those who don't play this might seem ridiculous but trust me, gamers go nuts over this stuff. They spend hours after hours trying to complete some ridiculous thing to get some achievement to get more digital points for their digital character that represents them in the digital system. Anyway, this same thing could be applied to penalties over different things in real-life. And most importantly, you get points when you do your shit right. Now our western societies are completely based on stick method without a carrot. Give people something when they do things right and take two times away when they fuck up. 1 step forward 2 steps back game if you are into doing stupid shit. Then you would feel the consequences of doing stupid shit. These points could be applied against how much you pay for common services like healthcare or taxes. Of course there's a lot of balancing issues like in every game mechanics but those could be solved with simulations. Like for example what happens to people who get caught in the bottom by doing some stupid shit and can't afford to pay increased taxes because of their low score? System should offer easy but maybe boring ways to replenish your score.. in gaming world this would be called grinding.

Overall I honestly think that our current model of somebody else trying to make you feel motivated or regret doesn't work, it has to come from yourself.