Kevin Williamson‘s latest column at National Review Online focus on Seattle’s recycling rules.
The geniuses who govern the city of Seattle have passed a law mandating that no more than 10 percent of the garbage produced by any household, multifamily dwelling, or business be composed of material that is recyclable or compostable. At the moment, violators are receiving warning tags on their garbage, but in January they’ll start receiving fines. The fines are not really punitive — at $1 per violation for individuals and $50 for businesses, they’re more a form of harassment.
Naturally, you’re wondering whether Seattle’s city fathers have sent the city’s garbage men to a seminar on solving Fermi questions. It is, after all, the trash-collectors, along with a team of special agents tasked with running down composting violators (one wonders whether that is a red notice or a black notice on the Interpol system), who are empowered to make judgments about the constitution of trash hauls and to issue fines. Strangely, this is not the case; those familiar with such training as has been undertaken to meet the challenge of outlaw garbage have been told, essentially, “Use your best judgment,” and try to visually divide any given quantum of garbage into tenths. This approach to the non-compost menace is non compos mentis.
Our friends at the Pacific Legal Foundation are doing what they do best, which is taking boneheaded, overreaching government agencies to court to force them to mind the law at least, if not good judgment. …
… Pacific Legal’s case against the Seattle garbage Gestapo is two-pronged: For one, the Washington state constitution contains privacy guarantees in excess of those secured by the Fourth Amendment, and the state’s supreme court has already ruled that police officers cannot search through a private party’s garbage without a warrant. Second, there is no avenue for challenging the findings of the city’s garbage police, no appellate process for adjudicating disputes about the contents of a Hefty Steel Sak. If you suspect that your local garbage agent has misjudged the proportion of stale Froot-Loops and moldy quinoa in your domestic waste — even if you can prove it — you have no recourse.
