Organized trash pickup: St. Paul, you'll soon be able to hear the birds

It's Wednesday morning in Bloomington, garbage day, and I can hear the birds. One truck went up one side of the street and down the other. It was not always like this.

Wednesdays were once a swarm of garbage trucks roaring back and forth, the smell of diesel fuel and the clank of trash cans hitting the pavement. But last year, the mayor and the City Council had the foresight to pass single-hauler trash pickup over the vociferous complaints of a handful of citizens. The move saved city residents around $13 million over the five-year life of the contract, not to mention future repaving costs from the heavy truck traffic and freedom from the chaos of up to 21 trucks racing up and down residential streets.

Two years ago, there were raucous City Council meetings where people actually cried as they begged the city not to take away their ability to choose a trash hauler.

The city of St. Paul is undergoing the same process today, proposing to switch to a coordinated system.

Imagine walking into the grocery store and there was only one brand of cereal on the shelf, one type of cheese in the refrigerator and only white bread on the rack. You probably wouldn't go back to that store. Americans want choice. We feel empowered when we can select from among hundreds of flavors of yogurt. But it is a false sense of empowerment encouraged by businesses and marketing campaigns to sell us more products. We want the freedom to choose; we demand the freedom to choose. We have become a nation of consumers.

Marketers take advantage of our lizard brain, the amygdala, the part of the brain that never thinks of the future. We want it now, never mind the consequences. But American society has become falsely empowered by choice. And when our elected officials want to restrict those choices — even when some of those choices are myopic to the detriment of our neighbors — we want to fight back. Don't trust the science; don't trust politicians; don't trust the government.

At the national level, political parties take advantage of our fear of less choice to get themselves elected. They are going to stop overregulation and government mandates, eliminate rules and regulations. They are going to give you the freedom of choice, even though sometimes the choices we make are antithetical to the greater good of society. This has caused a deep-seated antagonism against government, distrust in elected officials and the rise of the Tea Party. The ongoing conflicts around health care are not about fixing the system; they are about which side will give the constituents more choice.

I sincerely hope that the elected officials in St. Paul are able to see the long-term value of a coordinated trash pickup and that they do not succumb to the myopic freedom-of-choice movement. If they sit on their front step and listen to the birds, they will hear that an enduring community is more important than the ability to negotiate with your trash hauler.