Trego's Mountain Ear

The county health department has proposed several “solutions” to the problem of inappropriate materials being disposed of at the green boxes (see last week’s Tobacco Valley News). Two out of three of those “solutions” will remove the Trego greenboxes, while all three include a budget increase for the health department.

There are some issues with these, beyond the obvious “fewer services for more money”. First, none of the Health Department’s proposed solutions actually address the problem they are trying to solve. Second, they are trying to solve the wrong problem.

The problem the health department is trying to solve is essentially the misuse/exploitation of a common resource by the individual. It is, in other words, a classic tragedy of the commons. This type of problem comes from a mismatch between the cost/benefits to each individual and the cost/benefits to the group as a whole.

In this case, any individual gains from misusing the green boxes, as they save money (on gas) and time that would otherwise be spent on a trip to the dump. The group as a whole is harmed.

In order to solve a tragedy of the commons, that mismatch must be addressed. To do that, individuals misusing the green boxes must have personal consequences for doing so. Increasing security and fines is one method of doing so. Individual pickup at the end of each person’s driveway once a week would also do that. Removing the county green boxes and failing to replace them with an alternative, or reducing their available hours does not accomplish that.

However, none of this actually addresses the real problem, the one that the county health department should be trying to address. Because the right question isn’t “How do we stop people misusing the green boxes?”

The question they should be asking is “How do we make it easier for people to dispose of non-household waste?”

When government views the people as a problem, it has forgotten it’s purpose. The county health department has forgotten that its’ purpose is to serve.