O c'mon...
I'd be willing to bet the farm that landlords will not be responsible under the law for tenants violations.

I would also be willing to bet the farm that compliance will be relatively low, and persecution of noncompliance will be infinitesmal.

Market based recycling incentives are much better: require a particular type of bag for trash pick ups, available only at local stores. Levy an additional charge on each bag that is collected by the municipality and pays the sanitation fee. This provides a completely voluntary incentive for each family to produce less waste and recycle more.

Stefan

I've had rental properties in the Seattle area (Bellevue and Redmond) and in Scottsdale Arizona. Before you take the plunge, take a look at the ratio of rents to housing value. It's much higher in the Phoenix metro area than Seattle. This means a smaller investment in a rental property yields a higher monthly rent. Additionally, the appreciation potential is likely greater in areas outside the left coast since housing values are already high in these neighborhoods. I've found I made most of my money from the sale rather than from the monthly rents.

Arizona laws are easier on landlords than in Seattle and property managers are common.

Has anyone noticed how the Seattle City Council is transitioning itself from a representative council to a top-down Politburo? Mandatory recycling, mandatory non-smoking, mandatory ignorance of illegal immigrants, anything as long as it's mandatory. And I thought that dumpster-diving was an occupation of crooks stealing identities and passwords, but now we can expect Councilmembers snooping in our garbage cans to expose our political incorrectitude. What's next, Councilmembers, Soviet-style self-accusation tribunals?

Vote the rascals out.

Organize massive civil disobedience: designate a day to dump recyclable items in the trash and smoke Marlboros while doing so. And put up Nativity scenes in public places, just as an additional irritant.

Hi All, I own some rental income units in Los Angeles where there is rent control. It has become progressively worse with Politburo type of governance. They are always trying to dream up new ways to raise fees and to protect the tenants (aren't they magnificent). This kind of system really leads to guarenteed higher rents and even greater public expense. For instance, if I were able to evict troublesome tenants (which in essence are protected) I could reduce the crime in the area. Rent control really is ridiculous and when I drive through parts of LA it looks like it is a big vote plantation with the polits passing out supposedly free bananas. It's really so third world.

The great Mark Steyn in Wednesday's Wall Street Journal article about Howard Dean claims "to Democratic primary voters across the land, Vermont is a shining, rigorously zoned, mandatory-recycling city on the hill." I imediately thought of Seattle. The similarities are erie. We also have McDermott, leading the angry tin foil hat brigade with wild-eyed conspiracy theories just voiced on local radio.

As I said above, there are more effective ways of encouraging recycling. But how is being required to separate things like paper and aluminum out of general garbage disposal different from any other rules that are imposed and not questioned because we are used to them? Obviously there are other requirements for garbage disposal -- don't burn it in your backyard, put it in plastic bags, only drop it off at a particular place and time, dispose of car batteries or heavy objects seperately, etc. All done for good reasons, just like recycling is. Anti-recyclers sound like a bunch of lazy ****'s who don't want to be inconvenienced for an extra minute or two. Tough shiit.

Marcus, Good luck on trying to get a building full of tenants to do anything in unison. You're dreaming. Henderson, Nevada just collects rubbish and sorts it out at the dump. Too simple?

"But how is being required to separate things like paper and aluminum out of general garbage disposal different from any other rules that are imposed and not questioned because we are used to them?"

Oh yes, rules we follow unquestioned are invariably good and just and must have come from tablets inscribed by God, or at least JFK. Sorry, but I just don't see the Seattle City Council in that rarified company. No doubt they support all the exquisite urban freedoms that people do take for granted, such as aborting their kids or smoking dope or busting up Starbucks during WTO 'protests', but they're an arrogant gang of tyrants when it comes to their micromanagement of behavior by mandatory edicts. Being in the habit of compliance to tyrannical rules is no virtue.

So the City Council decrees that my time must be spent sorting garbage. Sorry, commissars, I value my time more than that. I benefit my community far more exercising my freedom than in falling in for this latest subbotnik.

Vote the rascals out.

Oh the siren song of good intentions. Has anyone considered whether recycling (as contemplated by the Seattle elite's) may be counter productive? Recycling programs may be more resource intensive than simple dumping. Recycling infrastructure (special purpose vehicles, collection centers and additional personnel) use financial resources. I've never seen studies that ask this financial question. I do remember New York City is trying to abandon some elements of the cities recycling program as a cost cutting measure. Economics is a nasty master.

Recycling of aluminum has proven beneficial. The reduction of aluminum ore uses a non-trivial percentage of all the world's electricity. All a community has to do to encourage aluminum recycling is to not harrass the bums who root thru garbage.

> Anti-recyclers sound like a bunch of lazy ****'s who don't want to be inconvenienced for an extra minute or two. Tough shiit.

So, they should be thrown in jail or shot?

That is, after all, what we do to people who break the law.

> Anti-recyclers sound like a bunch of lazy ****'s who don't want to be inconvenienced for an extra minute or two. Tough shiit.

Neither Hitler nor Pol Pot nor Robert Mugabe could have said it better.

Capital punishment is unjust, so you shouldn't be shot. Just fined a little.

Like I said (quoting many a conservative), stop whining.

> Just fined a little.

And when someone refuses to pay?

When you ask for a law, you're asking that someone be shot, jailed, etc. In fact, such violence is the whole point of law.