Not seeing systemic approaches to problems is incredibly frustrating

I pulled off an old City Paper (an issue from November) from a pile of stuff I hadn't read and the cover story is about how they investigated sanitation companies, and found that many did not actually recycle the recyclable materials they picked up, they merely tossed them and disposed of them as regular trash. See "How Private Contractors in D.C. Are Sending Your Recycling to the Trash."

What bothered me about the article was the failure by the writer to figure out that what was important was in identifying which _companies_ followed the rules and which companies did not.

Where the regulations and fines need to be focused on are the systemic failures. What's needed is an identification of the structural conditions that lead the noncomplying companies to continue to do the wrong thing.

Instead, the article focused more on individual failures.

And the article could have suggested linking compliance to the business licensing system. A sanitation company that doesn't comply with DC regulations about recycling ought not to be allowed to conduct business in the District of Columbia. If you want the business to wake up and take notice of the law, make sure that there are penalties in place that make breaking the law very costly.