Half a croissant, on a plate, with a sign in front of it saying '50c'
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Litter lottery

Each packaging is a lottery ticket
 
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To get rid of the litter lining the streets each piece of packaging is a lottery ticket.

When your local waste management collects your garbage the content of the bin is automatically scanned for its lottery ticket barcode. So it is in your best interest to collect any piece of garbage you can find.

What would be needed:

- A central litter and packaging registration organization. We have something like that in Germany, the so called "Dual System" with its logo "Grüner Punkt" which is mainly a cash cow of the garbage collecting industry.

- A scheme for generating unique lottery ticket barcodes and printing them on every item. The codes need enough entropy so that they cannot be forged by exhausting all code combinations.

- Garbage vans would have to have a fast and accurate barcode scanner for incoming garbage.

- Some kind of protocol to ensure that the driver of the garbage van does not collect your price.

Well, some details may still be missing, but its HB, after all.

Possible enhancements of the scheme would be RFID chips in mayor items and appliances (like TV sets, mattresses and the like) so that they can be traced to their original owners when they are dumped in the woods. Of course this would be a bureaucratic nightmare with Orwellian consequences, but so what?

I had this idea for some time, but [popbottle]'s bottle return scheme (see link) unstuck it from my memory slots.

Toto Anders, Feb 17 2015

Bottle return lottery lottery Bottle_20Return_20Lottery_20Lottery
[Toto Anders, Feb 17 2015]

Yep, we did this I'm afraid. Litter_20Lotto
[MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 17 2015]

[link]






       I think we did almost exactly this idea already. The proposal was to use the existing barcodes on packaging (plus a random element).
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 17 2015
  

       Yep. "Litter Lotto" - see 2nd link.
MaxwellBuchanan, Feb 17 2015
  

       Alright then, just a few minor modifications. Every container of kitty litter has a lottery ticket inside. A bonus for cat owners and folks who live in snowy areas, and a nice little moneymaker for the Cat Litter industry. Yay! Win-Win situation.
blissmiss, Feb 17 2015
  

       ^ Easier to find in a store than gravel. It also absorbs water, but I'm not sure how that's relevant.
FlyingToaster, Feb 17 2015
  

       It seems to me that clay litter would be great grit. Under freezing conditions it would be large edgy chunks. On thawing it would absorb water and break down into tiny particles, smaller than sand. This would wash away easily. The problem with sand is that drifts of it remain after melt. The problem with salt is that it rusts everything.
bungston, Feb 17 2015
  

       // I think we did almost exactly this idea already. //   

       Yes, and I even annotated on it which I completely forgot. Only the idea stuck as being genuinely mine.   

       On the day when someone will even claim that it wasn't me who invented the internet I will really begin to worry.
Toto Anders, Feb 17 2015
  

       This really is (was) a great idea. People scrounge through trash for cash already. Coming home just now there was a guy on a bike digging through my garbage and taking out the cans for recycling.Putting a value on that litter lying in the street if you put it into a trash can should rid the street of litter altogether. I'd pick stuff up and check it before tossing it, wouldn't you?   

       Forget about people just picking up trash on the ground, if everything was wrapped in what's essentially a lottery ticket that can be checked at the nearest garbage receptacle, well, how many people would toss a lottery ticket onto the ground without seeing if it was a winner or not?   

       And at the risk of making generalizations, the people most likely to litter are probably the people most likely to be obsessed with playing the lottery. No empirical evidence of that but you know it's probably true.   

       Anyway, great idea but baked to a crisp almost ten years ago.
doctorremulac3, Feb 17 2015
  

       We are told to carry a bag of kitty litter in our trunks in case we get stuck. It's good for traction under your tires. That's what THEY say. Says me.
blissmiss, Feb 17 2015
  

       I tried the kitty litter thing. It didn't work.
Voice, Dec 27 2023
  
      
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