A Modest Proposal to Encourage Recycling

  I've read that a lot of recyclable stuff is discarded instead of recycled.  So what about this idea?

  Require that each town have recycling bins and regular trash bags for each apartment and house.  Each bag has the house's number on it.  I know that several towns in Massachusetts already have recycle bins, so that's a good start.

  Now here's the kicker.  When the trash is emptied into the landfills, have the trash companies sort through the two bags.  If anything recyclable shows up in the regular trash, the house which provided the trash gets fined (and similarly for non-recyclable goods placed in the recyclable bag).  This should increase the rate of recycling and 
give the garbage workers more to do.

  This could be enforced by spot checks from time to time, similar to speeding.  However, if spot checks are used, the penalties should be quite stiff.  If you only get caught 1% of the time, you'd better be forced to pay $500 or $1000 or something like that to make sure that it's worth your while to keep on doing it.

  I'd also recommend that the government place some kind of tax on any product which cannot be recycled.  It can be a relatively small tax.  However, there is so much waste nowadays that even a small tax can have an impact on consumers.