I don’t know about other places but from what I observed and experienced in Worcester there were several problems that made it not work:
1. The cost of the trash bags relative to median income in some neighborhoods was too high. When a 5 pack of bags is $9 and you earn $7.25/hour before taxes, it is suddenly not that easy to justify doing the right thing when the free thing is possible.
2. People lived in apartment buildings and multi family homes so there is no easy identification of who exactly leaves a car battery or a mattress on the sidewalk at 3am. Having cops watch all the streets all the time for this wouldn’t work and neighbors don’t want to bother watching each other.
3. Because people didn’t earn that much relative to cost of living, high fines would just throw poor people in jail while those who can afford the bags can just buy the bags. So you’d still have trash on the streets but also cause people who can least afford it to lose their jobs by making them miss work.
4. Minor point but where you buy the bags matters. It was highly inconvenient that you couldn’t buy them at grocery stores. Instead you had to literally go out of your way to go to sketchy convenience stores and liquor stores instead.
Plenty of people used the bags but there were enough who didn’t that it made the city dirty. And once you get used to seeing trash on the street you are a lot less likely to think twice about contributing to it yourself.
i dont live in the US, but a small city in north india. so, we had this garbage problem (like you could see in new delhi today or a few years ago) on the streets with lots and lots of street garbage just everywhere.
over the past few years some changes were made.
1. a garbage truck ACTAULLY knocks on your door every morning, rain or snow and collects your home garbage. what used to happen was people earlier would fill their dustbins and once they were full, would take it outside to the nearest electric pole and just dump it there. stray dogs, straw cows would have a feast....
Now, the municipality took measures by giving garbage bins to everyone (for some tiny amount) and the garbage truck would take the days worth. that and the garbage collectors would double as street stray pickers so during their rounds if they found any random garbage, they would collect as they went. then they would manually sweep the streets every other day.
markets and other stuff, there is an informal "rag pickers" who take away business packing and other stuff because it is consistent and they get some income so that doesn't go to the streets. the municipality then goes around at night and does a manual sweep, every single day.
NO-ONE buys trash bags here. It is JUST TOO expensive like you said.
there is one part of the problem that still remains. Our city/region is still developing so there is constant constructions going on EVERYWHERE. the construction related wastage is neglected somewhat and people go at night and dump it here and there but otherwise i can safely say our city is MUCH MUCH cleaner than it was 5 years ago.
one of the good steps was the mandatory municipality fees which is only a few hundred bucks in local currency and that has helped a lot (plus the employees of the municipality nag people about leaving trash which helped in its own way)
1. The cost of the trash bags relative to median income in some neighborhoods was too high. When a 5 pack of bags is $9 and you earn $7.25/hour before taxes, it is suddenly not that easy to justify doing the right thing when the free thing is possible.
2. People lived in apartment buildings and multi family homes so there is no easy identification of who exactly leaves a car battery or a mattress on the sidewalk at 3am. Having cops watch all the streets all the time for this wouldn’t work and neighbors don’t want to bother watching each other.
3. Because people didn’t earn that much relative to cost of living, high fines would just throw poor people in jail while those who can afford the bags can just buy the bags. So you’d still have trash on the streets but also cause people who can least afford it to lose their jobs by making them miss work.
4. Minor point but where you buy the bags matters. It was highly inconvenient that you couldn’t buy them at grocery stores. Instead you had to literally go out of your way to go to sketchy convenience stores and liquor stores instead.
Plenty of people used the bags but there were enough who didn’t that it made the city dirty. And once you get used to seeing trash on the street you are a lot less likely to think twice about contributing to it yourself.