What Is It With Garbage?

Some tipsters, apparently, work weekends. So, unlike those of us slacking around, trying to find a parking spot at the Great Mall, they are busy typing and faxing and giving us the skinny. Kudos to them.

So, a quiz to start us off.

Q: Is regular-old garbage a recyclable?
A: According to the city's new rules, yes.

Here's the scoop (as I understand it). In order to encourage recycling, the City, way back in the day decided to waive the fees (a franchise fee, to be specific) it charges for garbage dumping if the load is recyclables. This used to be just the recyclables we leave on the curb in the little bins.

But in May, Chuck "I love the environment so so much" Reed okayed a new City policy that establishes that MSW, municipal solid waste, plain old garbage, is now covered under that policy, as below.


Please note the part that says, it must be "taken to a proper facility." In other words, for it to count, for the folks picking up the solid waste to have it count as a recyclable and therefore as fee-exempt, they have to take it to a facility that can pull out the recyclables. Here's the extensive list of places that do that:


Yes, one place. If you start to smell something nasty, it ain't the garbage. Let me clarify further, by showing you a section of Chuck Reed's contributions report from his run for Mayor:


So Greenwaste, who gave the maximum contribution to Chuck Reed's Mayoral campaign (and no others), gets a sweet deal in which the City gives a huge financial incentive for everyone else to bring all of their recyclables to Greenwaste. And, as icing on the cake, Greenwaste doesn't even have to take the leftover trash and dump it in a City facility, thereby potentially avoiding paying any fees to the City whatsoever. Done and done.

Just when I was starting to feel guilty for generating sales tax revenue in Milpitas, the City shows me that, apparently, it doesn't need my money anyway. We've reached the limits of Chuck's commitment to improving the general fund: when doing so would interfere with a contributor and supporter's bottom line.