The "Tradition of Service"
The NSWMA talking points start with a rosy bit of nostalgia:
Let me offer a counterpoint to their nostalgia with alternative view of the history of waste management.
The current system already includes a great deal of frankly intrusive government regulation, precisely because decades of unfettered "free enterprise" trash disposal led to environmental nightmares across the nation. American taxpayers have spent billions of dollars to clean up the messes left behind by private businesses who were focused primarily if not exclusively on serving their own bottom line. This "tradition of service" by private industry includes superfund sites, unlicensed dumps, toxic waste disposed right along with household waste, and perfluorochemicals contaminating groundwater right next door to Maplewood today.
Consider just one trash-related program just in Minnesota: the Closed Landfill Program set up in 1994. Through FY 2010, the program has spent a total of almost $341 million. So far, the former owners or operators of the landfills have contributed just $15.4 million toward that tab.
Trash management has become much better in recent decades, but let's be honest – many private haulers (and certainly their trade association) have been brought along kicking and screaming, invoking “free enterprise” as a bogus defense against efforts by government to protect the public good, the health of environment, and the quality of life on the planet we leave behind to our children.
1. THE CURRENT FREE ENTERPRISE BASED CUSTOMER-CHOICE HAULING SYSTEM SUPPORTS A LONG-STANDING TRADITION OF SERVICE BY PRIVATE INDUSTRY.
Let me offer a counterpoint to their nostalgia with alternative view of the history of waste management.
The current system already includes a great deal of frankly intrusive government regulation, precisely because decades of unfettered "free enterprise" trash disposal led to environmental nightmares across the nation. American taxpayers have spent billions of dollars to clean up the messes left behind by private businesses who were focused primarily if not exclusively on serving their own bottom line. This "tradition of service" by private industry includes superfund sites, unlicensed dumps, toxic waste disposed right along with household waste, and perfluorochemicals contaminating groundwater right next door to Maplewood today.
Consider just one trash-related program just in Minnesota: the Closed Landfill Program set up in 1994. Through FY 2010, the program has spent a total of almost $341 million. So far, the former owners or operators of the landfills have contributed just $15.4 million toward that tab.
Trash management has become much better in recent decades, but let's be honest – many private haulers (and certainly their trade association) have been brought along kicking and screaming, invoking “free enterprise” as a bogus defense against efforts by government to protect the public good, the health of environment, and the quality of life on the planet we leave behind to our children.
Labels: NSWMA Talking Points, organized collection
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