From 'Personal Virtue' to Civic Statute

What if Vice President Cheney's worst nightmare came true and failure to recycle was actually against the law? What if businesses could actually get cited for allowing more than ten percent of their trash to be composed of recyclable materials? What if the city garbage collector wouldn't empty your trash can one week because it had too many recyclables in it? Are we describing a jackbooted totalitarian environmental police state?

No, actually, it's just good old rainy Seattle, where all those things already have come to pass. What's more, it's apparently working, according to Brett Stav, a senior planning and development specialist at Seattle Public Utilities:"When we first started out, we had more than 90 percent of apartments and businesses complying with the new ordinance. The majority of residents get recycling and hardly any garbage cans were left behind at all."

We'll down a macchiato in a recyclable (or, better yet, reusable) cup to that.