Broke Cities Find Cash to Burn On Trash-Tracking Chips And "Green Police"

by Michael Snyder
The Economic Collapse
Sep. 12, 2010

Is someone out behind your house digging through your trash? Don't worry, it is probably just the government. When Audi ran their now famous "Green Police" commercial during the Super Bowl last year, most Americans laughed it off and thought that nothing like that could ever happen in America. Well, it turns out that it is happening in America. A growing number of U.S. cities are actually putting RFID tracking chips in trash cans and recycling bins and are starting to fine residents who do not recycle "properly". This kind of thing has been going on over in the U.K. for some time now, but very few people expected those living in "the land of the free" to be subjected to RFID trash tracking so quickly. But it is here. In many areas, government RFID tracker chips will now be monitoring what you throw away, how much you throw away and if you are recycling properly. Rather than spending money on things that will actually get the U.S. economy headed in the right direction, government officials across America seem obsessed with forcing the "green agenda" down the throats of the American people - even if it means chasing factories, jobs and economic activity out of their communities.

Not that there is anything wrong with recycling. I personally recycle large amounts of trash each week. But there is a huge difference between recycling as a free individual and being coerced by law to adhere to the sustainable development policies of the United Nations. The truth is that "Agenda 21" is being pushed down all of our throats whether we like it or not. It is all part of the Big Brother police state control grid which is being implemented in the name of "saving the environment" and which is being paid for by "economic stimulus" money in many areas.

That's right. Government snooping on your trash apparently meets the definition of "economic stimulus" in 2010. Perhaps this is what Barack Obama meant when he talked about creating "green jobs".  Local governments are going to need a lot of "trash snoopers" to make certain that we are all recycling acceptably.

In fact, John McCain almost flipped his lid when he found out that Dayton, Ohio was given a half million dollars in "stimulus funds" to put RFID tracking chips in recycle bins. Not that McCain is a friend of liberty and freedom either. The truth is that the vast majority of the politicians in Washington D.C. have been helping to advance the "sustainable development" agenda in one way or another.

But can you imagine spending "economic stimulus" money to spy on the trash of the American people?

No wonder all of the "stimulus packages" didn't do that much good for the economy. In fact, the amount of waste in the stimulus packages was absolutely mind blowing.

But those "green jobs" must be created one way or another, eh?

Even if it means spying on Americans.

So now even though we are in the midst of a horrific economic downturn, lots of communities from coast to coast have plenty of money to track our trash with RFID microchips.

Cities that are now using these chips to spy on our trash include....

*Cleveland, Ohio

*Charlotte, North Carolina

*Alexandria, Virginia

*Boise, Idaho

*Dayton, Ohio

*Flint, Michigan

Now how in the world does Flint, Michigan have money for anything?

Flint, Michigan is one of the poster children for the deindustrialization of the United States. It is a crime-infested war zone where thousands upon thousands of Americans live in desperate poverty.

And yet somehow they have money to monitor trash with RFID tracking chips?

It is almost as if we have stepped into "Bizarro America" where everything is the opposite of what it should be.

Unless the American people speak up and renounce this militant green agenda it is going to continue to be forced down our throats.

The scenes in Audi's "Green Police" commercial are not going to be so "funny" when they start becoming real....

So far, the worst city of all for snooping on the trash of citizens is Cleveland, Ohio. The truth is that Cleveland should be worried about how to put hundreds of thousands of people without jobs in the region back to work, but instead city officials seem obsessed with enforcing the radical green agenda of the United Nations. The new RFID chips being installed will allow Cleveland officials to monitor exactly how often residents roll their carts out to the curb for collection.

According to news reports, if an RFID tracking chip signals that a recycle bin has not been brought out to the curb within a certain period of time, a "trash supervisor" will actually sort through the trash produced by that home for recyclables.

Yes, this is now going on in America.

So what will the penalties be?

Well, according to Waste Collection Commissioner Ronnie Owens, trash bins that contain over 10 percent recyclable material will be subject to a $100 fine.

How ridiculous is that?

I recycle constantly, but I am sure that if I lived in Cleveland they could get me for being over the "10 percent limit" at least half the time.

Is there anyone who could honestly say that they will be able to stay under the 10 percent limit each and every time?

But that isn't the only fine in the new system.

If you set out an "excessive" amount of trash you will be fined between $250 and $500.

In addition, residents of Cleveland are also fined for putting out their trash too early and for failing to bring in their garbage cans from the curb in a timely manner.

Meanwhile, the city of Cleveland has hordes of unemployed workers and it is literally falling apart.

How completely and utterly ridiculous can one city possibly be?

But a city that is broke has to raise money some how.

In 2009, the city of Cleveland has issued 2,900 tickets for trash violations, which was almost five times more tickets than in 2008.

In 2010, the city of Cleveland is on track to issue over 4,000 tickets for trash violations.

One of the bizarre aspects of Cleveland's trash regulations is that it is always the property owner that receives the ticket.

That means that landlords in Cleveland are now forced to become spies in order to ensure that their tenants follow the law.

It is almost as if we are back in East Germany once again.

Has everyone simply forgotten that we have something called the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution?

According to the Fourth Amendment, the American people are guaranteed the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.

But these RFID tracking chips spy on us and our trash 24 hours a day.

What has happened to America?

As more insane measures like this are implemented across the United States, more factories, more jobs and more economic activity will continue to be chased overseas.

Meanwhile, the "smart growth" agenda is about to get a big boost by the U.S. Congress. Retiring Senator Christopher Dodd's last major piece of legislation, the Livable Communities Act, will create a new federal bureaucracy to make sure that "sustainable development" principles are being followed on every inch of land in the United States.

This new bureaucracy, the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities, would be given approximately $4 billion in federal money to pressure local governments to implement a more "green" agenda.

Not that the federal government has an extra $4 billion to throw around and waste, but that has never stopped them before.

The truth is that the U.S. is absolutely drowning in debt and the economy is coming apart at the seams. That is what the Congress and the White House should be worried about.

Instead, most of our "representatives" in Washington D.C. seem to have no trouble using "Big Brother tactics" to enforce the green agenda that so many of them are so obsessed with.

Sadly, most Americans actually still believe that we are "free".

But we are not free. The government controls and regulates us in tens of thousands of different ways, and each year the controls and the regulations just get tighter and tighter. It's just that we have lost our freedoms so slowly that most Americans have not become alarmed.

It is like the old story of the frog in the kettle. If you put a frog right into boiling water it will hop right out.

However, if you put a frog into water that is cool and then turn up the heat little by little it will sit there until it has boiled to death.

America, you are that frog.

It is time to hop out of the water.
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Michael Snyder writes The Economic Collapse Blog