Tracking You by Your Trash, so you better recycle or else

Doesn’t the headline give you warm fuzzy feelings: “New recycling bins with tracking chips coming to Alexandria”

Alexandria residents soon will have to pay for larger home recycling bins featuring built-in monitoring devices.

The City Council added a mandatory $9 charge to its residents’ annual waste collection fee.

That cash — roughly $180,000 collected from 19,000 residents– will pay for new larger recycling carts equipped with computer microchips, which will allow the city to keep tabs on its bins and track resident participation in the city’s recycling program.

“Allow the city to keep tabs on its bins”

OR (as the article continues)

“If you know who’s participating in the programs, you can focus your education and outreach to those who are not participating,” said Stacy Herring, Alexandria’s recycling coordinator.

Oh, keep tabs on US.

See, they are not monitoring the loss of the bins, they are monitoring who is and who is NOT recycling.

Rich Baier, Alexandria’s environmental services program director, said the city will use direct mailing campaigns and public presentations to target neighborhoods — not individuals — that lag when it comes to recycling.

“We’re just trying to get the biggest bang where we need it for the buck,” Baier said. “We don’t want to get into exactly what people are recycling.”

How much recycling does it take to recoup $180,000?

Another good idea, recycling, being high-jacked by Big Brother with an expensive price tag and an alternative agenda.