The Seattle Sobriety Test

[elfs]

In Seattle, when you get pulled over because they suspect you've been drinking, the cops take you around to the back of their car and show you five bins of different sizes and colors, one of which is segmented into three sections with moveable partitions, two of which are lined with plastic bags. The officer hands you a box. If you can successfully sort all of the trash in the box into the compostables, landfill, glass bottles (separating dark colors, bright colors, and clear), paper, and plastic, then you're free to go.

Comments

[davidlevine]

For real??

This could be used as something like reCAPTCHA -- using DUI suspects to sort the city's recyclables.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, of course not. I was being a little facetious with our city's rigorous standards of recycling. There's a reason there are ads mocking our recycling regime.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

hee hee hee hee...

('swhy I loved Lake Forest Park. It all goes in ONE BIG BIN and they sort it for you... 'cept the compostables, but then, that wasn't too bad either, it meant you had ANOTHER BIG BIN to stuff stuff in... our actual garbage up there, for five adults, two kids, and a pooch, was Not Very Much.)

[resonant.livejournal.com]

Toronto has the new optical sorters at the recycling plant too, so there's just a) compost, b) recyclables, and c) everything else.

[mg4h.livejournal.com]

I... I don't think I could do that SOBER.

The hell?!

[memegarden.livejournal.com]

It's easier than that in Capitol Hill, at least: for Rabanco pickup, we dump all our recycling including glass and lids into one big bin, compost/yard waste into another, and garbage into the third. And they've recently expanded their composting capabilities to include meat, bones, eggs, dairy, and greasy paper.