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I am in the waste business. We exist in a free-enterprise market. There is absolutely no money in recycling. Period. Trash fees increase because of mandatory programs like recycling and skyrocketing disposal (landfill) costs. I have noticed that everyone who is pushing recycling as the way to go doesn't want to pay for it. They seem to think that if they are "saving the earth" that it should be done on someone else's dime, the attitude stinks. All of this government mandated recycling and these "bottle bills" that inflate the real price of these worthless commodities serve only as a detriment to the whole concept of recycling and encourages fraud. Recycling would not exist as it does now in a purely free market system. Despite rising landfill costs, this is still the cheapest method of disposal going. Recycling must be subsidized almost everywhere it exists.

I mean to say that local landfills are the cheapest method of disposal going right now. Waste to energy may be the wave of the future, but that remains to be seen. Incineration is costly (4 to 5 times the cost of landfill) because of the EPA regulations on the burning and emissions coming from these sites, and then the ashes must be disposed of properly too. I will agree that there is no simple solution to trash but I feel that (especially in my local market, Wichita Ks.) industry and not government is the solution. I understand in some areas government has always handled waste removal and disposal, but perhaps they should give private industry a crack at it, we can do better than the government. As a matter of fact, we have made proposals to our local government which will guarantee trash rates for 20 years (with cost-of-living increases only) and include a recycling program, but our city is rejecting it and pushing a "franchising" system which is guaranteed to put companies out of business, and makes no guarantees on level of service and price, especially in the future. With government it is rarely what is best for people, and more about what they can control. Government needs to stay out of the trash business because they have already screwed it up enough.