h a l f b a k e r ySugar and spice and unfettered insensibility.
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To get rid of the litter lining the streets each piece of packaging is a lottery ticket.
When your local waste management collects your garbage the content of the bin is automatically scanned for its lottery ticket barcode. So it is in your best interest to collect any piece of garbage you can find.
What
would be needed:
- A central litter and packaging registration organization. We have something like that in Germany, the so called "Dual System" with its logo "Grüner Punkt" which is mainly a cash cow of the garbage collecting industry.
- A scheme for generating unique lottery ticket barcodes and printing them on every item. The codes need enough entropy so that they cannot be forged by exhausting all code combinations.
- Garbage vans would have to have a fast and accurate barcode scanner for incoming garbage.
- Some kind of protocol to ensure that the driver of the garbage van does not collect your price.
Well, some details may still be missing, but its HB, after all.
Possible enhancements of the scheme would be RFID chips in mayor items and appliances (like TV sets, mattresses and the like) so that they can be traced to their original owners when they are dumped in the woods. Of course this would be a bureaucratic nightmare with Orwellian consequences, but so what?
I had this idea for some time, but [popbottle]'s bottle return scheme (see link) unstuck it from my memory slots.
Bottle return lottery lottery
Bottle_20Return_20Lottery_20Lottery
[Toto Anders, Feb 17 2015]
Yep, we did this I'm afraid.
Litter_20Lotto
[MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 17 2015]
[link]
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I think we did almost exactly this idea already. The
proposal was to use the existing barcodes on
packaging (plus a random element). |
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Yep. "Litter Lotto" - see 2nd link. |
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Alright then, just a few minor modifications. Every container
of kitty litter has a lottery ticket inside. A bonus for cat
owners and folks who live in snowy areas, and a nice little
moneymaker for the Cat Litter industry. Yay! Win-Win
situation. |
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^ Easier to find in a store than gravel. It also absorbs water, but I'm not sure how that's relevant. |
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It seems to me that clay litter would be great grit.
Under freezing conditions it would be large edgy
chunks. On thawing it would absorb water and break
down into tiny particles, smaller than sand. This
would wash away easily. The problem with sand is
that drifts of it remain after melt. The problem with
salt is that it rusts everything. |
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// I think we did almost exactly this idea already. // |
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Yes, and I even annotated on it which I completely forgot. Only the idea stuck as being genuinely mine. |
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On the day when someone will even claim that it wasn't me who invented the internet I will really begin to worry. |
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This really is (was) a great idea. People scrounge
through trash for cash already. Coming home just now
there was a guy on a bike digging through my garbage
and taking out the cans for recycling.Putting a value
on that litter lying in the street if you put it into a
trash can should rid the street of litter altogether. I'd
pick stuff up and check it before tossing it, wouldn't
you? |
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Forget about people just picking up trash on the
ground, if everything was wrapped in what's
essentially a lottery ticket that can be checked at the
nearest garbage receptacle, well, how many people
would toss a lottery ticket onto the ground without
seeing if it was a winner or not? |
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And at the risk of making generalizations, the people
most likely to litter are probably the people most
likely to be obsessed with playing the lottery. No
empirical evidence of that but you know it's probably
true. |
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Anyway, great idea but baked to a crisp almost ten
years ago. |
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We are told to carry a bag of kitty litter in our trunks in case
we get stuck. It's good for traction under your tires. That's
what THEY say. Says me. |
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I tried the kitty litter thing. It didn't work. |
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